


Never Forgotten

by sandys18



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Memory Loss, Nanda Parbat, Pregnancy, Season 3 is different, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-05-12 23:46:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5686297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandys18/pseuds/sandys18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al Sah-him woke up with a jolt, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He had dreamt of her again. Although, he wasn’t sure if it could really be called dreaming, when he could merely feel and not actually see a thing. </p><p>The smell of her perfume, the way his hand fit in hers, the way that little scar on her back felt on the tips of his fingers, he could feel it all. He could even hear her heartbeat at times, beating in sync with his. </p><p>Then, on some nights, he would even feel her next to him as he slept, her hands drawing meaningless patterns on his bare chest. But, he could never see her - not her face, eyes, or lips or the color of her silky smooth hair, which he could sometimes feel gliding through his fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was writing an epilogue for My Blonde Dictionary and I ended up writing this.
> 
> IMPORTANT: Everything in season 1 and 2 happened. Season three happened differently in this story. Except for the part about Oliver becoming Al Sah-Him. And, Ra's al Ghul and Nyssa are dead. The story begins 4 and half months after Oliver became Al Sah-Him. You'll learn what happened between Oliver and Felicity in my version of season 3 as the story moves forward.  
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Arrow, any characters or anything else you might find familiar.   
> Hope you guys like it.
> 
> No beta again.
> 
> Thanks so much for almondblossom for translating the dialogues into Arabic.  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.

  

Al Sah-him woke up with a jolt, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He had dreamt of her again. Although, he wasn’t sure if it could really be called dreaming, when he could merely feel and not actually see a thing.

The smell of her perfume, the way his hand fit in hers, the way that little scar on her back felt on the tips of his fingers, he could feel it all. He could even hear her heartbeat at times, beating in sync with his.

Then, on some nights, he would even feel her next to him as he slept, her hands drawing meaningless patterns on his bare chest. But, he could never see her - not her face, eyes, or lips or the color of her silky smooth hair, which he could sometimes feel gliding through his fingers.

He wanted to see her so badly though. He needed to know what the face of the woman, who kept waking him up from his sleep every night actually looked like.

If he had been an artist, he would have tried to draw her - try to capture what he felt with brush strokes. Alas, he neither had such a talent nor the patient to draw something he was sure was perfection. He was just a murderer, a killer, a monster - he knew how to hold an arrow, a sword, a spear, but not a brush.

He ran a hand over his face and turned to the cold empty spot beside him. He could almost imagine her lying there next to him on the bed -  a faceless, nameless, yet an alluring presence.

The first few times he had felt her presence beside him, he had thought he was going insane and sought help from the priestess at the Nanda Parbat temple. He had hoped she would give him something to stop the hallucinations. Yet, none of the priestess’ sorcery, her herbs or potions had worked on him.

In fact, the dreams had become more frequent and lucid with time. And, more he dreamt of her, more he didn’t want her to be gone - more he wished to see her in his dreams and perhaps, one day for real.

He dragged himself out of bed and walked towards the large window overlooking the fortress grounds.

It was a typical night in Nanda Parbat - no clouds in sight and the wind blowing across the fortress was almost as warm as it had been during the day. On the ground below, he could see guards walking about with torches in their hands and for a moment, he wished he was just another guard and not the man destined to be next Ra’s al Ghul. There were responsibilities and tasks, he would have to carry out as the new Ra’s and he wasn’t sure he was cut out for it.

Make no mistake, he was a ruthless man - the late Ra’s had molded him into one. But, every time he saw his reflection, he didn’t see the next Ra’s al Ghul, but a lost man, a man without a purpose or a reason to live.

He sighed, looking up at the starry sky. It didn’t matter if he wanted to be the next Demon Head or not, he had no choice. He didn’t know who else to be. This, was all he knew.

"Al Sah-him?” Someone knocked on the door, drawing him out from his musings.

 _"ماذا هناك؟" [“What is it?”]_ Al Sah-him put his shirt on before opening the door.

 _"أيها السهم, تم اعتقال بعض الأشخاص من حرس الجناح الشرقي" “[Al Sah-him, the guards at the East wing have captured some people.”_  ]Nazeer, one of the older assassins was standing in the doorway with his head bowed out of respect.

أرسلهم إلى سجون الأنفاق في الوقت الراهن. وسوف أتعامل مع هذا الأمر في الصباح الباكر"٠"  _[“Send them to the dungeons for now. I will deal with them tomorrow morning.”]_ Al Sah-him turned to close the door. The news didn’t seem as if it needed his immediate attention. The guards would often catch people from neighboring villages wandering about the area around the fortress. They were mostly harmless - sometimes, a drunkard, who had lost his way, sometimes a woman begging for food to feed her hungry children and sometimes, curious young boys willing to risk their lives to see what really lay inside the fortress.

 _“[But, these people… they’re demanding to see you right now. They’re saying that they have some information that you might be interested in.“_  ]The assassin blurted before he could close the door. "ولكن ، هؤلاء الناس ... انهم يطالبون برؤيتك الآن. انهم يقولون أن لديهم بعض المعلومات التي قد تكون مهمة لك" [ _“And …. I have seen them around the fortress before. I don’t know what they were doing here then, but I've seen them talking with you. And, I remember them leaving Nanda Parbat right before you took your place as Warith al Ghul.”]_

Al Sah-him’s interest piqued at the information the assassin had divulged. He didn’t remember anyone or anything from the life he had before becoming Al Sah-him. He neither remembered his birth name nor how he had gotten the scars and tattoos that covered his body.  Ra’s had made sure that no part, no trait, no traces of his former self was left in him when he was officially given the title of Warith al Ghul, Heir to the Demon.

Although, now, as he pondered over things, he wasn’t so sure if Ra’s had been completely successful in erasing his memories. Because, there were still those scrambled memories of that beautiful woman swirling around in his mind.

Then again, she could simply be a figment of his imagination - just something his mind had made up to erase the loneliness that was eating him up alive.

Even though after Ra’s death, he could have easily used his resources to dig into his past, he had been afraid to do so. Yet, now that the opportunity to know about his past life had presented itself to him, he just couldn’t turn his back on it. He wanted to know. He had to know.

 _"تقدم امامي اذن" [“Lead the way then, .."_  ]He followed Nazeer through the hallways and into the main hall.

One of the guards standing by the door, announced Al Sah-him’s arrival as he stepped into the room.

Just as he entered, he saw a man with a stature a soldier standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He didn’t seem the least intimidated by the assassins standing guard behind him. “We want to talk to you.” He demanded from Al Sah-him.

“Alone!” The young brunette next to him added, staring at him as if she had seen a ghost.

He was about to answer, but then his eyes caught a third person - standing slightly behind the two of them - a petite, bespectacled woman, with her blonde hair tied into a tight pony tail.

He studied her closely as he walked into the middle of the room. She wasn’t that tall. He could barely see her over the brunette’s shoulder and, she was looking down, as if she was too angry and disgusted to even look up at him.

He felt a burning need to walk up to her and lift her face by her chin, just to see what color her eyes were and what they were saying.

“I would appreciate if you tell your minions to stand outside until our conversation is over.” The tall man turned back and frowned at the assassins, standing behind him.

If Nazeer was right, he had associated with these three people before. But, what roles have they played in his life? Were they enemies? Acquaintances? Friends? Family? Could he trust them, more than the masked men standing guard, willing to sacrifice their lives for his?

“Whatever you have to say you can say it in front of them, these men are loyal to me. I trust them.” Al Sah-him finally replied, his eyes settling back on the blonde. He just couldn’t seem to look away from her for more than a second.

“But, we don’t trust them.” The blonde scoffed, pushing her glasses back before finally lifting her head a little to glare at him.

Blue - her eyes were a clear blue and he wasn’t surprised for some reason. Yet, as blue as they were, he could see a hint of sadness in them - hidden behind the anger she was trying to project.

He found himself taking a step towards her. “But, you trust me, Miss-” He paused realizing he didn’t really know her name. Yet, it felt as if he should. He felt as if he should know her - remember every detail about her.

Could she be her then? The woman he kept dreaming about?

He dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. It was dangerous to make assumptions. Especially, about beautiful women - the late Ra’s had told him so - many times.

“We don’t have a choice. If we had a choice, we wouldn’t have come here.” The blonde’s soft pink cheeks turned a velvety red as she continued to stare at him.

“But, the question is can I trust you? How do I know this is not just some plot to kill me?” Al Sah-him raised a brow at her. The banter felt natural and familiar to him and he wanted to add something more to spur her on further, to rile her up, just to see if he could make her face go any redder. But, it wasn’t the time or the place and neither was he the kind of man, who would waste time flirting with random women or any woman for that matter. He was Warith al Ghul, he had to be more responsible with his words and how he acted.

“You see, just like we don’t have a choice, you don’t have a choice either. If you’re too chicken to ask your so called, ‘loyal’ assassins to leave and talk to us alone, we walk out of here without telling you why we are here. And you’ll never get to know what we've found out about one of your biggest enemies.” The  blonde’s audacity stunned Al Sah-him. He was the heir to the Demon, no one had ever dared to talk to him in that tone, let alone call him, “Chicken”.

“What makes you think I would just let you walk out of here?” He roared and the brunette stepped in front of the bespectacled girl as if to protect her.

“I assure you, we’ll manage to walk out of here - unscathed.” The younger girl seemed confident about her abilities. Her stance - the way she stood with her feet spread a little wide, showed him that she probably would be able to defend herself.

“Very well then.” With a wave of his hand he dismissed the guards. He didn’t need them anyway. He knew he could handle the three of them easily. He wasn’t afraid, not even remotely. He was not “chicken”.

“Ok, now... tell me who you are and why you’re here?” Al Sah-him turned to the trio.

Once the guards had left and the doors were closed once more, the blonde came out from behind the other girl. She fixed the over-sized trench coat she was wearing. It clearly didn’t belong to her. It seemed too masculine to be hers.

Did it belong to the man she had come there with? Was he her lover?

He quickly ignored the strange pang he felt in his chest. Because, that was what he was taught to do by Ra’s. He was taught to suppress those kinds of feelings - those that supposedly made him weak and vulnerable.

“So, you really don’t remember anything about your past?” The blonde came a little closer to him - brow creased and her head tilted to the side.

“No. I don’t.” He ground out, eyes fixed on her. He noticed that she was wearing too many layers of clothing on such a warm night. Something just didn’t feel right. And, the way she kept constantly fixing her coat made him suspect that she was hiding something under it. A weapon perhaps? But, his guards would have found it and taken it away from her by now, if she indeed had walked into the fortress carrying a weapon.

“Oh?” Something he could only describe as disappointment darkened the blonde’s features. “I guess… then we’ll have to introduce ourselves. This is Thea Queen and that’s John DIggle.”

“And you?” He didn’t want to sound eager to know her name, but the words had come out sounding exactly that.

“Felicity… Felicity Smoak.” She bit on her lower lip, her blue eyes boring into his as though she was willing him to remember something important.

And, he wanted to remember too. He wanted to know why he liked the way her name sounded so much - so much so that it had him repeating her name under his breath. “Felicity Smoak.” It suited her perfectly, he thought.  It made sense. Felt familiar. He felt something akin to a smile tugging at the corners of his lips and he cleared his throat just to get rid of it. “Let’s cut to the chase.” He turned his focus on to John Diggle.

“For the last two months, Damien Darhk has been terrorizing Starling City.” Diggle explained.

“And, what does that have to do with me?” Honestly, Damien Darhk and his plans had a lot to do with Al Sah-him and the League. Damien Darhk was the man responsible for the former Ra’s al Ghul and his daughter’s death. Damien wanted see the league destroyed. He wanted to see the Heir to the Demon dead. But, that didn’t mean Al Sah-him cared about what he did with Starling. It was just another city to him.

“He has been stealing ammunition and robbing banks. He is strengthening his army and he is strengthening it to come after you.” For a moment he felt as if John Diggle was trying to warn him, help him, instead of trying to bargain for whatever he was surely there to bargain for.

“I’ve been strengthening my army as well. If Damien Darhk wants to attack us, declare war against us, we are ready.” For the last few weeks he had been strategizing - strengthening the fortress, increasing the number of assassins and their training hours. He was sure that they were more powerful and stronger now than they had been few months ago.

“Not if they are making a weapon that could wipe out the whole of Nanda Parbat in a blink of an eye.” Felicity made woosh sound to elaborate, how quickly his league could be blown up into nothing.

Though as the Heir to the Demon, he shouldn’t find anything adorable or cute or amusing or anything of the sort, about anything at all, Felicity Smoak had him thinking of her as all of the above. And, that unsettled him. It made him lash out.  “What kind of a weapon? How do you know?” Anger was his go to reaction when he didn’t know how to react. It was one of the few human emotions he was allowed to display.

“It doesn’t matter how we know! What matters is that you help us stop this!” John Diggle matched his tone.

Felicity slowly put a hand on the man’s arm to calm him and Al Sah-him felt that pang again. But, this time it was a little bit harder to ignore. “Well… you see, I’m very good with my hands. I mean my fingers… I don’t mean like…” She paused, and took a deep breath before continuing. “I mean, when it comes to typing computer codes.”

Al Sah-him let out a short breath, merely to hide his amusement.

“Darhk needs Felicity to build the weapon.” Thea helped her friend get to the point. “We want your help to stop Damien Darhk. We want your help to keep her protected. I mean, what better place is there to keep her hidden than the very place he cannot infiltrate or destroy without her help.”

“I will have to think about it.” It was difficult to believe Darhk wanted to destroy Nanda Parbat completely. He was one of the very few people, who according to the former Ra’s, knew about the existence of the Lazarus pit - Nanda Parbat’s very own fountain of youth. He and Ra’s had fought over it for decades. It didn’t make any sense as to why Damien Darhk would want to risk destroying the Lazarus pit now.

“There’s no time to think Al Sah-him. We’ve run out of places to hide her.” Diggle claimed.

“You know this problem could easily be solved if I just...” He pulled his sword out and pointed at the three of them.

Felicity yelped when Diggle quickly pulled her behind him.

As Al Sah-him’s eyes flickered over to theirs and as his eyes caught the pair of hurt blue eyes that stared at him from behind Diggle’s shoulder, he felt the sword get heavier.

He realized that he couldn’t kill them. He couldn’t explain why, but he just knew he couldn’t.

“You probably could. Kill us, I mean.” Felicity flinched as if it pained her to admit it.

He wanted to tell her how wrong she was, but he opted to simply drop the sword instead.

“But, what if I tell you that I can help you defeat Darhk?” Felicity continued, fixing her glasses - pushing it up the bridge of her nose. “I can help you track where he’s hiding his weapons. Help you track their every move. In short, let me bring this place to the 21st century.”

Al Sah-him put the sword back into its sheath. “We already have someone to do that.” The fortress may have looked like something from the medieval times, but they had it’s own intelligence division equipped computers and servers and whatnot.

“I know I’m not the only person in the world with a degree from MIT. But, there is a reason why Damien Darhk is after me. … I’m the best at what I do.” Felicity pointed at herself proudly.

His eyes raked over the blonde for the umpteenth time.

He didn’t know if there was any truth to anything they were saying. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to take the risk of letting her go and Damien Darhk then using her to make his weapon. Moreover, he was interested in finding out more about his past and what these three people had meant to him back then. And, If the blonde was as good as she said she was, she could definitely be an asset. “Alright, I will protect you in exchange for your computer skills.”

"So, I guess that makes us frenemies then?” Felicity put her hand forward for him to shake.

It was very tempting - to touch her hand, to see how it would feel, run his fingers over those electric blue painted finger nails of hers. But, he decided against it. “I’ll prepare rooms for the three of you then.”

“No, we both have to get back to Starling. We may not be able to defeat Darhk’s army, but we can’t just let them take our city that easily.” Thea Queen said determinedly.

He couldn’t believe, her friends were going to simply leave her in Nanda Parbat to go save their city. Did they not know, what kind of a place Nanda Parbat was? Did they not know what kind of a man he was?  

“Please, take care Felicity.” As Thea Queen said her goodbyes to her friend, Diggle walked over to Al Sah-him.

“Hurt her in anyway and I will kill you. That’s a promise.” The giant like man growled in a low tone. Though Al Sah-him was sure he could take him in a fight, he also knew John Diggle meant every word.

“I’ll keep her safe.” Al Sah-him himself was taken back by how naturally those words had spilled out of him. It almost felt as if they’ve had a similar conversation once before about her safety.

* * *

 

Few minutes later Al Sah-him found himself alone in the main hall, with the blonde. “So… I’ve been meaning to ask...” She played with her fingers shyly.

“What?” Maybe it was because of the sense of Déjà vu he had felt or because of the way she blushed, but for whatever reason his voice had come out sounding softer than he had expected. “What do you want to ask?”

“Where’s the toilet… because I really need to pee.”

He bit down a smile. “I will arrange a room for you. If you need anything let Nazeer know.” He went out of the main hall and instructed Nazeer to take Felicity to a room on the west wing.

“Thanks.” Felicity gave him hesitant smile before turning around and following Nazeer out of the room.

As Al Sah-him stared at the blonde’s retreating figure, he wondered if he had made a mistake. Was she a liability than an asset? Can he really keep her out of harm's way? And, why did it feel as if she was hiding something very important from him?

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Al Sah-Him Finds out what Felicity is hiding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I'm so thrilled to see the response to this story.
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos and reviews.
> 
> IMPORTANT: Season 3 on the show and in my story is going to be different.   
> Thanks so much for almondblossom for translating the dialogues into Arabic.  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.
> 
> There's no beta again.

 

Frustration couldn’t quite sum up what Al Sah-him was feeling.

Tonight, he had dreamt of kissing her.

Her lips had been soft and hesitant against his lips at first, but then he had pulled her closer, kissed her harder. The feel of her breasts brushing against his chest had made him groan, wanting more of her, wanting to be inside of her.

Then, just when he was about to slide his hand between their bodies and touch the soft nub between her legs, it all had come to an abrupt end. She had put her hand on his chest and pulled away from the kiss, forcing him to wake up.

His tongue had instantly darted out to lick his lips, foolishly expecting to taste her cherry sweet lip gloss on them, but there had been no such thing.

“What do you want from me?” He shut his eyes and tried to imagine her there again - straddling him, her fingers trailing the scars on his chest just as she did most nights. “Who are you?” His hands came up to grab the imaginary woman by her waist and then -

“No!”

His eyes flew open at the sound of a scream. For a moment, he had thought he had imagined it. He had thought that the woman from his dreams had protested against his advances. But then, when he heard those screams once again, he realized that it was very much real and that the sounds were coming from somewhere not that far away from his room.

“No! Don’t! Please!”  It didn’t take long for him to recognize the voice. It was his guest, Felicity - the woman who he had promised to protect.

He rushed out of the room without giving it another thought, not even bothering to put on a shirt or shoes - only stopping for a second to take his sword out from its hanger.

“Nazeer! What’s going on?” He found the assassin at the far end of the hallway, pacing in front of his guest’s door.

"أعتذر أيها السهم لعدم سيطرتي على الوضع. الفتاة ... هي ... انها تصرخ في نومها و لست متأكدا مما يجب أن أقوم به" [“ _I appologize Al Sah-Him for my inability control the situation. The girl… she is…she is screaming in her sleep and I’m not sure what I should do._ ” ]

 Al Sah-him had never seen Nazeer so helpless. Nazeer may know hundred ways to kill a man with just his bare hands, but it was obvious that the assassin was clueless when it came to comforting a woman struggling in her sleep. And, honestly, Al Sah-him was no better. He too had no clue as to what should be done to stop her cries. Usually, his sword would have sufficed to silence someone. One swing of the sword and one threat, and there would be silence, but that wasn’t what this situation demanded.

 “Don’t! Please!” The blonde’s cries made him want to run to her though - run and let her know he was there.

 There to do what? Would his presence even be welcomed? Would it even matter to her? Would she push him away scared?

 He looked down at himself. He was a monster and his horrid tale was written all over his body. No woman would ever feel safer or calmer at the sight of someone like him.

  _[“Wake her up and give her a glass of water.” ]_ He supposed it would work, as he would always reach for a glass of water, whenever he woke up after dreaming of something horrible.

"أيقظها وإعطها كوبا من الماء"  _[“Yes, Al Sah-Him.”_ ] Nazeer bowed before slowly pushing her bedroom door open.

“Oliver! Please, don’t go!”

Al Sah-him was about to turn around and go back to his room, when he heard her plead. He wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with the name she had uttered or the tone of her voice, but he found himself unable to walk away.

 "Oliver!”

 “Felicity?” He didn’t know what came over him, one moment he had been standing outside her room frozen and the next moment, he had darted past Nazeer to get to her.

 “Felicity?” The room was ill lit. If not for that single beam of light streaming through the curtains and the light flowing through the doorway, he would have neither seen the beads of sweat on her forehead nor the tears streaming down her eyes.

He threw his sword into some dark corner and sat beside her on the bed. “Hey.. hey.” He gently caressed her cheek with the back of her hand to test her reaction to his touch. She didn’t shy away as he had feared she would. In fact, he thought he saw her face relax just a little bit at the contact.

 “Don’t do this, please.” She muttered in her sleep, wriggling under the sheets she was tangled up in.

 “Shh sh… you’re safe.” He cooed as he gathered her into his arms, along with the rumpled sheets that were still wrapped around her.

 “Oliver.” She curled into his lap and buried her head in his chest as though it was the most natural thing for her to do.

"سيدي السهم؟"  _[“Master? Al Sah-Him?”]_ It was when Nazeer called his name that he realized that the assassin was still there, standing and awaiting his next instruction."

"ماذا ينبغي علي.." _[“What..should I..”]_

 Felicity shivered at the sound of Nazeer’s rough voice and Al Sah-him tightened his arms around her small frame. "! غادر! الآن" _[“Leave! Now!”]_ He snapped at the older man.

 "نعم ، أيها السهم" _[“Yes, Al Sah-him.”]_ The darkness all but consumed the small bedroom as Nazeer left, closing the door behind him.

 “No..No...” The the blonde murmured into his chest, latching onto him harder.

 “It’s just a nightmare. You’re OK. I’m here.” He placed a kiss on top of her head and felt her instantly relax against his body. “It’s alright, Felicity. ”

 Her cries slowly faded away, but he kept his arms wrapped around her. It felt right somehow, to have her in his arms. He didn’t know who they had been to each other in the past, but this closeness didn’t feel wrong.

 “Hmm…” She stirred in his arms, mumbling that name again. “Oliver?” The way she uttered those three syllables made his heart swell up with something he couldn't quite understand.

Was he jealous of this Oliver? Was _he_ this Oliver?

"Don't leave me..." Her eyes fluttered opened and twinkled, catching whatever little light left in the room.

"Shh.. shh..you're OK."

She lifted her head to look up at him. Her hands roamed up and down his back as if she was trying to make out whether she was awake or still dreaming. "Oliver?" He could see her brow slowly furrow as the grogginess of sleep wore off. 

“Felicity... are you..” His eyes flickered down to her slightly parted lips. He contemplated running his tongue along her upper lip, just to check if it tasted like cherry sweet lip gloss.

“I... you…” Her hand stilled on the arrow mark that was seared onto his back. “Oh my God! You’re not my Oliver!” She jumped back, out of his lap, pulling the sheets over herself.

 He looked away as if her words, her frightened gaze could burn him.

 “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.” Her voice was barely audible, but it stung him in away nothing ever had. In fact, nothing was ever supposed to. He had been trained and tortured to be emotionally numb. But her words... _“You’re not my Oliver!”_ Her words rang in his head, stirring up emotions he didn’t think he could even feel. His jaws clicked as he tried keep his emotions reined and keep them suppressed as they should be.

 At least, he supposed, she had saved him the trouble of asking whether he was Oliver - the man she had been calling for and clinging onto in her sleep.

“Well then…” Without even chancing a glance at her, he stood up from the bed and picked his sword up from the floor. “I should go.” He was no longer needed and he saw no point in staying there. Lingering there could only serve to confuse and frustrate him further.

“Ol.. Al Sah-him...I’m sorry, you had to.. that I..” She stuttered as he walked towards the door.

“Like I said before, if you need anything, let Nazeer know.” The light from outside burst in through the threshold as he pulled the door open. "تصبحين على خير يا فيليسيتي" _[“Good night, Felicity.” ]_ Then, like a fool he turned and look at her.

She was breathtaking.

He had seen many beautiful women during his time in Nanda Parbat. When Ra’s had been alive he would often send women up to his chambers - blondes, brunettes, red heads, exotic beauties from places he didn't know existed. But, Al Sah-him had not even touched any of them. It hadn't felt right to him. Especially, since he had known that none of them had come there willingly. That was one line even Ra’s had failed to make him cross.

However, the blonde woman in front of him, lying on the bed and hiding behind a mess of silk sheets, was a different kind of a beauty.

She was sans glasses. Her eyes were a bit puffy from crying and her blonde hair was messy - few strands sticking to her face. The dark blue henley shirt she wore had fallen off her left shoulder exposing a tantalizing amount of skin. If she had looked at all willing at that moment he would have probably taken her then and there.

But, it wasn’t just her physical beauty that he found alluring. Something in her drew out something within him he didn’t want to and probably couldn’t afford to explore.

“Umm.. yeah.. Goodnight...” She pulled the sheets even higher and moved away from the light as if she was trying to hide from him.

And that was when he saw it. The little bump on her stomach. “What’s that?” He already had an idea about what it was, but he wanted to give her a chance to explain herself.

“What’s what?” She feigned innocence as she tried to cover it up with a pillow.

“That!” He marched towards her and pulled the pillow and sheet off of her.

“Tada? I’m pregnant?” She shrugged, with one eye closed.

If he hadn’t been the monster he was, he would have perhaps fallen for her cuteness. Then again did that flutter he felt in his stomach mean he had already fallen for it?

It couldn’t be, he told himself as he pointed his finger at her. “You! How long did you think you could hide this from me?”

How did his guards miss this? And, how did he not realize it sooner?  

He studied her again. The bump wasn’t that big. But, it was there. He couldn’t believe, he had been so absorbed in comforting her that he hadn’t even felt the bump when he was holding her in his arms.

“As long as I could really. Which apparently wasn’t that long, since you already found out."

“Nanda Parbat is no place for a pregnant woman! You’re going back to Starling, tomorrow morning!” This new development complicated matters. She would definitely become a liability. Furthermore, they were soldiers, killers. They were not capable of tending to a pregnant woman.

“Starling is no place for a pregnant woman either… not anymore. And, honestly, with Damien Darhk trying to hunt me down, I’m not safe anywhere… except here.”

“How many months?” He wasn’t sure why he was interested in knowing that piece information, when he already knew nothing could change his mind about her going back to Starling.

“Almost Twenty one weeks.” She rubbed her tummy gently.

Twenty one weeks. He was afraid to do the simple calculation - count back to the time when Nazeer had said he had seen Felicity in Nanda Parbat. But, should he be afraid? It was obvious to him who the father was. It had to be her Oliver, who Al Sah-him was clearly not. She had told him so herself.

He frowned at her stomach as he mulled over things.

“Don’t look at my baby with your judge-y eyes. I know it’s a kind of small for five months. It’s hard to eat healthy when there’s an evil guy chasing after you. But, the doctor said he’s healthy though - all 10 ounces of him.”

“You are going back to Starling, end of discussion!” That was what was best for everyone he felt. Babies and pregnant women didn’t belong in Nanda Parbat, just as those perplexing feelings the topic was bringing out in him.

“No!” Holding her belly with one hand, she stood up on the bed. Her shirt only reached mid thigh and it rode up higher as she walked over to him.  “I’m not going back!” They were now standing face to face and he could almost feel her minty breath on his face.

“Yes you are!” He yelled.

“No! I’m not!”

He only remembered few months of his life, but he was certain that she had to be the most stubborn person he had ever met. No one else would have ever dared to challenge his orders this way.

“I think you’re forgetting something. You need me!”

His eyes dropped to where she was poking him on the chest with her index finger. It marveled him somewhat to see her so undisturbed by his scars. She hadn’t so much so as flinched at the ragged lines that marred his skin or the tattoos etched onto it. If it had been any other woman, he was sure she would have either looked at the scars repulsed or looked at him as if he was something broken that couldn’t be fixed.

It could only mean two things, he figured. One, this wasn’t the first time she had seen him shirtless. Two, she wasn’t shallow. Whatever anger, hatred or disgust the blonde had towards him had nothing to do with his appearance, but all to do with the kind of man he was.

“You need me to keep this place from being destroyed by Darhk!”

“I’m sure I will find another way to deal with that.” He would have to now.  

“Oh… oh…” She bent a little and put both her hands over her stomach.

“What? What’s wrong?” His right hand came up to touch her, but he was quick to stop himself.

“The baby … he just kicked.” She looked up at him with a smile before taking his hand and placing it on her stomach.

The sword he had in his other hand fell to the floor with a clunk. “It’s a he?” He could feel it - the baby move under his hand. It was kind of weird and fascinating to think there was an actual baby inside her - a life untouched by darkness of the world.

“I don’t know. I just I felt like it’s a he today. Because, he was being stubborn just like his father. I wouldn’t mind if it’s a he or she really.”  Felicity rambled on and he tried to imagine it - a little Felicity. A blue eyed baby girl, with the chubbiest of cheeks, rosy just like her mother.

His eyes dropped to his hand that was resting on her stomach. It had no business, no right to touch something so pure.  “I should go.” He pulled it away quickly.

“Oh… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” She stepped back and sat down in the middle of the bed. “I just got a little excited. He hadn’t been moving much the whole day and now finally he did. Maybe he was jet-lagged. I mean I was feeling jet-lagged and he probably was feeling that I was feeling jet lagged. And-”

“You’re going back tomorrow.” He cut her off. If he let her talk any longer he feared she may somehow be able to convince him to let her stay.

“I am going to name him Tommy, you know… after his father’s best friend. Or Mia, if it’s a girl. Just because, I like that name. But… I’m scared that I would never be able to do that… be able to see my baby’s face. Once Damien catches me… I know he will, if I’m out there…. And he would kill me and my baby if I refused to help him. I don’t want to help him make something that could kill hundreds of people, but I also don’t want him to hurt my bab-” She paused and took a deep breath. “If I wasn’t pregnant I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.” She summed up, smearing the tears falling down her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

“Let me think this over…” If someone were to ask him the reason as to why he decided to reconsider, he probably wouldn’t have an answer - not a reason he would want to admit to anyway.

“Does that mean I’m staying?” She sounded so hopeful and he couldn’t stop the corners of his lips from curving into a smile.

“It means you’re not leaving tomorrow.”

“And, what does that mean?”

He sighed, already imagining how keeping this pregnant woman even for a day could give rise to so many problems. “It means tomorrow you need to prove that you … your condition wouldn’t hinder us in anyway and that you are indeed good with computers as you claim to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now... I'm going to work on the next chapter of Cupid's Angel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks so much for all the kudos and comments. You cannot even understand how much they mean to me.
> 
> Here's the next update! Thank you for all of you for all the lovely comments and Kudos. 
> 
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
> 
> Thanks so much for almondblossom for translating the dialogues into Arabic.  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.
> 
> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

 

Al Sah-him stared at the plate in front of him. He didn't have an appetite tonight. He didn't, most nights. 

Although it usually had to do with the burden of being the leader to a league of assassins, tonight, it had mostly to do with a certain blonde woman, who was currently residing in Nanda Parbat. He kept thinking about her every second of the day. He kept wondering about how their past maybe connected. He kept thinking about the child growing in her stomach.

 Her mere presence in the fortress was slowly turning his world upside down and he didn't like it one bit. But, should he send her back to Starling City, simply for that reason alone? 

He had to make a decision about her soon though - preferably tonight, for the sake of his own mental health.

He had been going back and forth on his decision ever since this afternoon - ever since, Felicity had successfully passed every test that they had thrown at her, to check her hacking skills. It would have been much easier for him to make a decision, if she had not been as remarkable with computers as she had said she would be.

"أيها السهم, لقد تلقيت رسالة من مدينة ستارلينج" [“ _Al Sah-Him_ … _You’ve received a message from Starling.”_ ] An assassin bowed before him as he handed him a sealed envelope.

"تستطيع ان تذهب" [“ _You may go."_ ] He waited until the man had left the room to open the sealed message.

When the doors to the dining room finally closed shut, he gently ripped the envelope open. The message was encrypted - written using a series of symbols only the most highest ranked members of the league were able to read. The symbols at the bottom of the message indicated that it was sent by Husam al Din - an assassin who Al Sah-him had sent to Starling to spy on Damien Darhk and more importantly, to find out whether there was any truth to what Felicity and her gang of friends had said about Darhk's plans.

He began to read the rest of the message, carefully decrypting the symbols in his head. “ _Warith al Ghul, you are right. Darhk is indeed searching for a girl. Her name is Felicity Smoak. I couldn’t find out why yet. But he has his men looking for her_.”

The note made one thing abundantly clear to him, whether he could trust her or not, liability or asset, he couldn’t let her leave easily now. She was valuable leverage.

After folding the note into four, he held it to the candle fire and watched it burn.

Other than him and Felicity, no one else inside the fortress knew, why exactly she was there. Not even Nazeer, his right hand man knew much about it. Even Husam wasn’t given all the details when he was sent to spy on Darhk. And, except for Nazeer and couple of his men, no one even knew what Felicity's name was. They were told to use the alias, "Farrah"

Al Sah-him trusted his men and he knew they would die for the league. He hadn’t been lying, when he had said so to Felicity and her friends, when they had come to him with their proposal three days ago. However, his instincts told him to keep _this_ information about Felicity to himself. His gut told him she would be safer this way. Maybe he would one day find out that it had been a stupid decision by his part to not to let his men in on this secret. Nonetheless, that was a risk he was willing to take to keep Nanda Parbat and Felicity safe.

“There you are!”

He turned to the sound of the dining room doors opening. “I need to talk to you about something!” Felicity came stomping - wearing the exact same over-sized she had worn the first time he had met her.

“What do you think you’re doing here!” He stood up, growling at her - throwing away the napkin he had on his lap onto the table.

"حاولت منعها سيدي. أخبرتها بأنها لا تستطيع ازعاجك بينما أنت تتناول طعام العشاء، لكنها لا تريد ان تستمع" [“ _Al Sah-Him, I tried to stop her. I told her you are not to be disturbed while you have your dinner, but she wouldn’t listen.”_ ]Nazeer came marching behind her.

"سوف أتعامل مع هذا الأمر. قف خارجاً حتى أستدعيك مرة أخرى" [“ _I will handle this. Stand guard outside until I call you again.”_ ]

"كما تريد" [“ _As you wish.”_ ] Nazeer walked out, not before glaring at Felicity, who just rolled her eyes at him in response.

Al Sah-him almost felt sorry for poor Nazeer. The assassin, who could command an entire league by his own, had trouble controlling this five foot something blonde. Albeit, he had ordered all of his men to not to harm her in anyway, since she was not their prisoner, but someone who was there as part of a deal he had made. If he had not implemented that rule, he had no doubt that Nazeer would have had a much easier time keeping her in line.

"I need a favor from you.." Felicity mumbled, fumbling with her fingers.

“What?” Al Sah-him sat back in his chair and looked at her. She looking somewhat distracted by what’s on his dinner plate. “Felicity!”

“I’m sorry." She shook her head and turned her attention to him. "You would think after 21 weeks and eating from every restaurant in Starling City the cravings would stop.” Biting on her lower lip, she glanced up at him.

The chicken and the salad that was served every other night at Nanda Parbat wasn’t something someone would call mouth watering. But, he guessed for a woman, who was eating for two - with all the changes happening to her body that she could have strange cravings.

"Take it!" He pushed his plate forward, inviting her to eat. It wasn't as if he was going to eat it anyway.

“No, that’s alright. I've already had my dinner. Nazeer was kind enough to leave my usual bowl of mush on the floor next to my bed this time, unlike the last few times, where he just left it outside my door.”

He had no idea they were giving her prison food. “I'll talk to Nazeer about your food later. Now, sit there and eat!” He gestured at the chair on the far end of the long dining table.

“I wouldn’t want to… it’s yours.”

“Eat!” His voice startled her.

She grabbed the plate and the silverware, but he could see that it was mostly because, she was hungry and not because she was afraid of him. “If you insist.” She slowly pulled the chair on the other end of table and sat down.

He glanced at her over the tall brass candle holders set at the middle of the dining table. “So, what did you want to ask me, Miss. Smoak?”

She mumbled something incoherently as she chewed on a piece of chicken.

“What?” he asked.

She swallowed the food and repeated what she had said earlier. “I said, I thought we dropped honorifics last night? I mean you did. I never used them to begin with. I mean, Mr. Him, just doesn't sound right... does it?”

He hadn’t even realized it last night. He didn’t even know what made him call her by her first name or why he had felt so protective over her last night. It once again begged the question, “ _what kind of history did his former self and the blonde share?”_ He knew one thing for certain though, whatever the history between them maybe, he loved the name, ‘Felicity’.

“Ok, then, Felicity.” Yes, the name did sound perfect. “Tell me what did you want to ask?”

“Clothes.” She replied.

“Clothes?”

“Yeah, clothes. Don’t know if you have noticed, but I keep washing and wearing the same clothes I wore when I first came here. Thank God, I decided to wear lots of clothes that night to cover up-” She paused, realizing she was about to admit that she indeed had tried to hide the fact that she was pregnant.

“So, you’re assuming that I’ll let you stay here?” 

She put her fork aside. “I thought you said I could stay, if I proved to you that I’m good with computers?”

“I haven’t made my decision yet.” He was going to let her stay. He had to now. But, he was surprised by the gumption she had to simply assume he would.

“Alright..." He watched as her expression quickly change from confusion to anger.  "In case you are going to let me stay in this creepy 18th Century fortress, make sure I have something to wear other than my Spider man underwear.” It was obvious from the way her nose scrunched and her cheeks flushed, that she hadn’t thought through what she was going to say.

His head tilted to the side as he tried to understand, why he enjoyed seeing that particular expression on her so much. “I’ll see what I can do.” The league usually took whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted from the near by villages and their clothes were usually made by couple of servants working at the fortress. He doubted there would be anything suitable for a pregnant woman to wear, unless she wasn't opposed to wearing one of his league uniforms. Though the idea of her wearing something belonging to him stirred up a sense of possessiveness with in him, he somehow couldn't quite picture her wearing any dull or dark colors. Red, green, bright pink, gold and blue, were the kind of colors he could associate with her. However, he could imagine her in one of his white dress shirts. But, the last time he had a while dress shirt in his possession was... he couldn't remember when. He couldn't remember if he had ever even own one.

 “Thank you. I just want something to wear, at least until, Diggle and Thea come to visit me... hopefully with some clothes.” She continued to eat again.

 “What about your Oliver?” The question had slipped out of him without even realizing.

 She coughed, choking on her food a little. “What about my Oliver?”

 “Wouldn’t he want to come visit you? I mean, from the way you were calling him in your dreams I assumed that-”

 “Whatever you assumed... it’s wrong!” She spat.

 “So, he’s not the child’s father?” He didn’t know what was driving him to ask these questions - curiosity or something else, something more.

 Her eyes welled up with tears as she gripped her fork tightly. “No!” Her answer was short and precise. So precise, it felt as if she had shot a bullet right through his heart.

He struggled to understand why he would feel that way. There was no reason for him to be hurt, unless… unless, he was her Oliver.

No! last night she had pushed him away saying he wasn’t her Oliver. It couldn’t be.

He studied her closely. Tears were running down her cheeks and she was angrily stabbing the pieces of chicken before shoving them into her mouth - her very alluring mouth. He was for a second captivated by the way her lips parted and closed around the fork.

He already had images of one woman screwing with his brain and he definitely didn’t need another one. _"Too late for that now."_ A voice in his head mocked and  he got up from his chair quickly, pretending not to have heard it. “When you finish, let Nazeer know, he will take you back to your room.”

She didn't retort or even look up at him. But, he could see that she was itching to say something.

After lingering around the room for a few seconds, he stormed out of there, closing the doors with a loud bang.

"!اصطحبها إلى غرفتها عندما تنتهي من تناول الطعام. و المرة القادمة تأكد من حصولها على طعام أكثر لياقة مما تقدمونه لها" [ _“Take her back to her room when she's done eating. And next time make sure she gets something decent to eat!”_ ] He commanded Nazeer as he went past him.

* * *

He went down to the lowest level of the fortress, where they usually trained. The room which was connected directly to the court yard, consisted of an arsenal full of many mordern weapons and many archaic weapon.

Bow and arrows were his most favorite and what he excelled at. Yet tonight, his hand had straight away gone to his sword. He needed to do something that could wear him down quickly, so that he could fall asleep easily without wondering too much about the pregnant blonde. And, practicing with the sword for few hours, he felt would be the best solution.

Thus, he practiced relentlessly for hours, until eventually, he exhausted himself to the point he could no longer hold the sword straight.

When he collapsed into his bed after a warm bath, he was able to fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

* * *

_Laughter – his room filled with laughter - her laughter. He sat up and looked around, but wasn't surprised when he didn't see her._

_Just when he was about to fall back, he felt her behind him, pressing herself – her supple breasts, against his back, her hands coming to wrap themselves around him._

_He leaned back, catching her right hand in his left. “I love you,” She whispered so softly  against his neck, he barely heard it._

_Even though he was sure he wouldn't probably see her face, he glanced over his shoulder. Before he could even think of catching a glimpse of her, she captured his lips in a searing kiss, making him to turn his body around to face her._

_He drew her closer, never breaking the kiss, letting his hands roam all over her smooth back. His fingers almost instinctively sought out the little scar on top of her shoulder blade. “I've missed you... Felicity...”_

His eyes snapped open startled by his own admission. 

For a few moments he simply sat in his bed trying to process what he had just dreamt of. Why would he have said that? Was she actually Felicity, just as he had suspected the very first night he had met her or did he for some reason want her to be Felicity?

He could only think of one way to solve this dilemma. He needed to talk to her, right now! He had been avoiding this for far too long. He had been scared to learn the truth for far too long.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter!
> 
> Thanks so much for the comments and Kudos. I'm so happy you all are enjoying this story.
> 
> Hope you like this chapter as well
> 
> Thanks to AlmondBlossom to translating from English to Arabic.  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.
> 
> No BETA again. SORRY for the mistakes!!!  
> ********************************************************************************  
> IMPORTANT: Thought I remind you guys again that season 3 in my story is a little different from the show. And you'll get to see what happened mostly from Felicity's flash backs.  
> ************************************************************************************

Felicity turned the ancient looking faucet off and stepped out of the shower. The granite tiles felt cold on the pads of her feet as she walked over to the faded mirror hanging on the wall.

“Your boobs are getting bigger, Smoak!” Smiling, she turned to her side to check on her baby bump. “Hey, there little fella! Sorry mommy couldn't talk to you that much the whole day. Mommy had to pass few very stressful tests today, to make sure we both get to stay here a little while longer.”

She had always known she would one day want to be a mother, but she hadn't ever thought that this was how it was going to happen. The pregnancy was unexpected to say the least, yet she didn't regret it in anyway.

And, all she really wanted to think about these days was the little life growing inside of her.

She could almost imagine her baby in her arms – sleeping, curled into a tiny ball. So precious and so innocent. Cute little feet and toes. Smile and eyes just like the father.

Felicity grinned ear to ear at the happy images that popped in her head.

However, her joy only lasted until she noticed the peeling paint on the walls behind her. The old grungy walls of the Nanda Parbat fortress reminded Felicity of her grim reality. The reality where she had to go to the leader of the stupid league of assassins, just to get herself a pair of underwear.

She may not be a prisoner there, but she wasn't quite free either. She spent every moment of her day inside the fortress, where her every move was carefully watched and scrutinized by Nazeer, who she teasingly called, her Personal Assistant - much to the man's annoyance.

Living in Nanda Parbat was a struggle. Everyday, she had to keep reminding herself that she was doing all of this for her unborn child - to ensure her child's safety.

But, still, it wasn't easy – to live without her friends, to live with hundreds of assassins, who could snap her neck at any given moment and most of all, to live in the same vicinity as the man she loved, knowing that he had no recollection of who he was or who she was or what they were.

Al Sah-him had no clue that she was once his IT girl, his girl Wednesday, his friend, his partner and maybe more. But, she couldn't really blame him. How could she? How could she blame him, when he couldn't remember his real name or his little sister? However, none of it meant that Felicity wasn't deeply hurt when she realized he couldn't remember her. Neither did it mean that she wasn't angry at him for letting Ra's turn him into a man, she barely recognized.

She absolutely hated the name, "Al Sah-him". Yet, at the same time, she couldn't just call him "Oliver". Because, he wasn't her Oliver. Not any more.

Although, every now and then, she had caught glimpses of her Oliver in Al Sah-him. The way he stared at her, when he thought she wasn't looking and the mirth she saw in his eyes, when he was feeling the baby move around in her stomach, showed her that her Oliver was still there somewhere.

A tear rolled down her cheek and she quickly smeared it away with her hand.

She had promised herself she wouldn't do this – cry over what she had lost and stress herself out. But, it was a hard promise to keep. Especially, with all the hormones messing with her brain.

She took a deep breath and began to dry herself with a towel. The dark grey towel, which was provided to her by Nazeer, felt rough against her skin and she sighed, thinking about her soft cotton towels at home - thinking about Oliver's towel that she kept neatly folded up on the towel rack in her bathroom.

* * *

 

_He called it his Emergency Towel._

_She couldn't remember when exactly he had brought that emergency towel to her place, but she remembered him whining about feeling a little ridiculous whenever he used one of her her pink towels when he would sometimes stay over._ _And then, one night, the towel was just there - on the top most shelf on the towel rack._

_It was that night, she had noticed how her things had moved around the house to make space for his things. To an outsider it may have looked as if they were a couple and Oliver had moved into her house. But sadly, they weren't involved in anything that could be called non-platonic._

_She had just been tutoring him after hours - helping him become the corporate master of the universe, she knew he could be, so that he could take his company back._   _Yes, she like the good friend that she was, had offered Oliver her help, not realizing it would ultimately lead to seeing him walking around in her kitchen in his towel and blurring the lines they had drawn between them._

 _Her_ _lips curled upwards as her mind wandered to that very first morning, when she had walked into her kitchen and caught Oliver wearing nothing but his Emergency Towel._

 _"Oliver! What are you wearing? I mean I know it's a towel. And, I've seen you in a towel before... multiple times... But..." She had stopped talking just to take in his image. What made that picture so perfect, wasn't just the towel that hung very loose and low on his hips, but the fact that he had been_   _making coffee for the both of them while humming a song she had made him listen to few days before._   _She may have fantasized about that exact scenario many times, but she had never in a billion years had thought that it would ever become a reality._

_"Oh? You're not usually up this early... So, I... Coffee?"  He gave Felicity her mug and walked passed her as if it was something they did every morning._

_And, they did do that - every morning after that first morning it happened._

* * *

 

Oh, God! She missed that! She missed seeing Oliver in a towel and she missed her morning coffee.

Just then, the baby kicked her, drawing her out from her thoughts. "OK... OK... I know. No Coffee for mommy for another four months." She draped the wet towel over the towel bar and tugged her Henley over her head. Well, to be honest it was Oliver's.

One night, she had missed him so much that she had snuck into the foundry and stolen a few of his clothes - his blue Henley, a white dress shirt and his green hoodie, to be precise. Somehow, sleeping in his clothes made her feel safer and closer to him. However, in the back of her mind, she knew that she was losing him more and more to the darkness of Nanda Parbat as each night passed.

She looked at the mirror one more time and flashed a sad smile at her reflection. “Everything will be fine. It has to be.” She told herself before stepping out of the bathroom.

She was about to crawl into her bed when the bedroom door suddenly flung opened and Al Sah-him stormed in.  “Who are you?” He stopped midway and just glared at her - his nostrils flaring, jaws clenching.

“What do you mean who am I? I already told you! My name is Felicity Smoak! Is this why Nazeer told me I'm not allowed to lock my door, so that you can just barge in and ask me stupid questions?”

 _نذير، اغلق الباب ["Nazeer, close the door!" ]_   

At Al Sah-him's orders, the older assassin closed the door from the outside.

"I'm asking you again, Felicity... Who are you?"

Oliver and she had fought over many things many times, but the anger she now saw in his eyes  - in Al Sah-him's eyes as he stalked over to her, was different to anything she had ever seen before.

“What's gotten into you?” She found herself backing against a wall. Was she intimidated by him at that moment? Yes. But, deep down she believed, brain washed or not, Warith al Ghul or not, Oliver or not, he would never physically hurt her. She knew it in her bones.

“Who are you?” He asked again as he grabbed her by her shoulders.

"I... me ...I..."  

When he eventually realized she was incapable of saying anything more, he turned her around so that she was standing facing the wall. He didn't press his body against hers as she half wished he would. But, he was standing close enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his body and hear his breaths fall.

He pulled her t-shirt off her right shoulder and she gasped. “What do you think you are-” Her protests died on her lips when he put his hand over her shoulder blade.

"Felicity..." A familiar jolt of electricity ran down her spine as he began to trace her scar there - the one that she had gotten almost a year ago, while trying to save Oliver's ex-girlfriend, Sara from a bullet.

“You _are_ her...” He mumbled almost as if he was caught in a daze.

“What?” Should she dare hope that he had somehow remembered her? Should she dare hope, her scar had somehow triggered his memories?

“Felicity... I...” His lips hovered somewhere close to her neck and her eyes closed automatically, expecting his lips to touch that sensitive spot behind her ear any moment.

But then, suddenly, he was gone. His warmth was gone.

She opened her eyes and slowly turned around.

He was standing couple of feet away from her, rubbing his index finger against his thumb, just as he always used to do whenever he was unsure, nervous or worried about something.

“Are you alright?” she asked, taking a step forward.

“Before I became.... Al Sah-him... you and I... were we?”

She barely heard him, but his fragmented question made one thing clear to her - he hadn't yet remembered everything. “We were...” She pondered over her answer for a second. Should she tell him the whole story or just the gist of what they were?

“Friends...” She blurted in the end, very well knowing their relationship couldn't be summed up so simply like that. But, she realized she wasn't quite ready to explain all that to Al Sah-Him and she wasn't sure Al Sah-him was ready to hear it all either.

“You're lying to me!” He reached her with one long stride and the momentum somehow made her walk backwards until her back once again hit the wall behind her.  And, next thing she knew she was trapped between the wall and Al Sah-Him's warm, sweaty body.

She tried to push him away, but he caught her hands by her wrists and held them over her head. "Don't lie to me!" He barked at her.

“We were also Partners!” She spat back.

His eye brows arched, as though he was trying to read between the lines.

“Just business partners.” She added quickly so that there wouldn't be any misgivings.

“Stop lying to me!” He growled at her face once again and she turned her head away.

“I'm not!” She wasn't lying, but it wasn't the whole truth either.

“Then, what about those... dreams!” The desperation in his voice tugged at her heart strings and her eyes once more turned to him.

“What … what.. dreams?” 

“For months, I've been seeing these scrambled visions of a girl...“ His voice and his eyes slowly turned softer as he continued to gaze at her. ”Of you...”

Her heart melted at those two simple words and the tone of his voice. She had to stop her hand from reaching out and soothing those worried lines between his eyes.

“I didn't know it was you for certain until... until tonight. I don't remember much... Just you and I.. we were... we both were... and the scar...”

She could guess what he was referring to just by the look on his face.

Their first time. Or in other words, their only time.

She was happy to know he remembered it. Maybe not completely or the way she would one day hope he would. But, he remembered, nonetheless. She would take that as a win, she thought.

“You can't tell me we were just friends or business partners!” He let her hands go and gripped her shoulders a little tightly as though he was afraid she would run away without answering him. “Because I know what I saw wasn't... just two friends or just two business partners.”

“It was … just... one night...” She finally told him.

His hands dropped from her shoulders at her confession. “A mistake?”  

She wasn't sure what he had read in her eyes to come to that conclusion, but she didn't want him to ever call it that. “A goodbye.” She amended it. Although, that night had meant a lot more to her than a goodbye, she figured that for Oliver, it couldn't have been anything more than a good bye.

“Am I Oliver then?” Something akin to hope shined in his eyes.

“No...” She sighed. She couldn't say yes. The man standing before her tonight was not the man she had made love to five months ago.

He took a step back, his hands balled into fists at his sides, head fallen and looking utterly defeated.

“You used to be him..." She said in the end, unable to see him so distraught.

He looked up at her again - his eyes darkened with an array of emotions. "And, the baby?" 

Felicity chewed on the inside of her cheek. She hadn't wanted him to find out, mostly because she wasn't sure what he – this brain washed version of Oliver would do with that information. But, now she had no choice. “Yes..” She gulped thickly as she waited for his response.

He fell silent, but Felicity could almost see the wheels in his head turn. “Darhk is not looking for you to make a weapon is he? He wants you because, he somehow knows you are bearing my child?”

She didn't need to answer. The tears that streamed down her cheeks should be an enough of an answer. “Oliver...” The name had slipped out of her mouth without even realizing.

He stepped closer to her again and grabbed her chin. His finger slightly dug into his cheeks and she let out a little moan. “Don't ever call me that! I'm not your Oliver!"

She stood a little shocked, a little sad, a little frightened and a whole lot frustrated by his demands. “Old habits die hard they say. Don't worry it won't happen again. Whatever we were... Whatever you now know about.. me ...us.. it doesn't change anything. It shouldn't. I'll be out of your hair as soon as Darhk is no longer a threat to me or my baby."

أنتي لا تفهمين. هذا قد يغير كل شيء [“ _You don't understand. This does change everything.” ]_

She couldn't understand a word he said, but the intensity in his eyes made her heart race and knees go weak.

أنا آسف على ما سأضطر لفعله بكي يا فيليسيتي [“ _I'm sorry about what I'm going to have to do to you, Felicity." ]_ He brushed his thumb over her lower lip before turning around and walking away from her.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's lots of angst in this chapter. 
> 
> A small WARNING... (It's hard to say without giving anything a way, but) There's something which will seem very cruel in this chapter, but hope you guys trust me and trust Al Sah-him (Oliver) to do the right thing and keep reading until the end.
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: I changed her league given name from Muskan to Farrah.
> 
> Thanks to AlmondBlossom to translating from English to Arabic.  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.

The ancient temple at Nanda Parbat had a strange vibe about it that always made Al Sah-him feel restless. But tonight, he felt more antsy than usual as he paced about the place, mindful of the Head Priestess' ever judgmental eyes that followed him around.

"هذا التقليد ... لابد من القيام به. وهو من العادات. هذا هو القانون _"[“The ritual... it has to be done. It is tradition. It is the law.”]_ She told him for the umpteenth time as if he already didn't know. However, the problem was, he wasn't sure if it was safe to perform this ritual the priestess was talking of, on Felicity, who was pregnant with his child.

His heart began to thump loudly as his mind wandered to last night, when he had made that particular discovery.

The revelation, which was not truly a revelation, but more of a confirmation, had made him feel things he couldn't even comprehend.

On the other hand, everything made more sense to him now. The visions, the way his gut clenched, whenever she uttered the name, “Oliver” made more sense to him, now that he knew, he was the “Oliver” that she had been asking for, crying for in her sleep just a few nights ago.

Every complex and perplexing feeling he felt towards her, from the moment he first met her, made more sense to him, now that he knew the baby was his and the pregnancy had been the result of that one night they had shared – the events of which, had been hounding and teasing him almost every night, for the last few months.

And, last night, he had felt the need to ask her everything - about the man he used to be, about “Her Oliver” and their relationship. But, he hadn't. Something had stopped him in that moment. Maybe it was the tears, he had seen pooling in her eyes at the memory of the Oliver she had lost or maybe it was the thought of possibly hearing her talk highly of a man he knew, he no longer was or could ever become again.

But, whatever the reason may have been, he had held back his questions for another day, another night.

" اذا كنت لا ترغب في القيام بذلك ، آمل أن تعرف أن الخيار الوحيد الباقي هو التخلص من الجنين ." _[“If you do not wish to do this, I hope you know that the only other option left is to get rid of the baby.”]_ The priestess' words made him stop dead in his tracks.

 _"_ لا! هذا ليس خيارا _" [“No! That is not an option!”]_ He hadn't even needed a moment to consider, what the priestess had suggested. He just knew he couldn't do that. He couldn't even imagine doing that. Although, the reason as to why he couldn't, alluded him. Taking another's life, shouldn't actually be something so hard for him to imagine. He was an assassin after all. It was what he did – he killed.

Yet, he couldn't bring himself to imagine _this_ specific scenario. Was it because the child was his own flesh and blood or was it because of Felicity – because, he had sworn to keep her safe? Or was there more to it? He didn't know.

He felt as if his brain was about to explode every time he tried to understand why. He was clearly no longer equipped to handle this sudden barrage of emotions.

How could he really, when in fact, he was not even supposed to feel anything anymore?

 _"أيها السهم، أنا لا أشكك في قرارك ، ولكن هل أنت متأكد من أن هذه المرأة ... هذه الفيليسيتي، يمكن الوثوق بها؟ هل أنت متأكد أن هذا الطفل هو طفلك ؟" [“Al Sah-him, I'm not trying to question your judgment, but are you sure this woman... this Felicity, can be trusted? Are you sure this child is yours?”]_ The Priestess not so surprisingly asked.

 _"_ أنا متأكد " _[“I'm sure.”_ ]  He replied firmly. Felicity was smart enough to know that declaring the child as his, could only bring further complications into her life, even though she couldn't have known just what kind of complications they could be. So, she couldn't have had a good enough reason to lie to him about her pregnancy. As a matter of fact, he was sure, she wouldn't have ever divulged the truth had he not stomped into her room last night and pressed her for answers.

In any case, the moment she had come out with the truth, he had felt as if he had somehow known it all along. He had felt as if the truth had always been in front of his eyes and he had merely been too hesitant to acknowledge it.

“Where are you taking me?”

He heard Felicity's voice just outside the temple and he stepped towards the entrance without even thinking.

He came face to face with her right in front of the doorway.

Next to her, stood Nazeer, holding her left wrist in a tight grip.

Felicity had foregone her dark rimmed glasses and her hair was a pretty mess of curls, falling over her shoulders and framing her face. She was wearing the plain white tunic that the priestess had ordered her to wear for the ritual and the sheerness and the lightness of its fabric helped accentuate her little baby bump.

He felt an undeniable urge to put his hand on her stomach, just to see if the baby would move again, but he held himself back.

“Oliv … Al Sah-him?” She corrected herself, probably adhering to the demand he made last night.

He simply couldn't have her calling him Oliver. For one, the name and the title given to him by Ra's, was what his men respected. Letting an outsider call him something other than “Warith al Ghul” or “Al Sah-him” he feared would somehow make them question his leadership.

Still, that wasn't the main reason, why he didn't want to hear her calling him, “Oliver”. The name just stirred something within him, he didn't want to be stirred. 

Even if he knew he could never be “Her Oliver” ever again, the name felt so right coming out from her lips that it terrified him – though, he would never admit it to her or to anyone else for that matter.

“Please explain to me, what the hell am I doing here!” She was trying to get herself free from Nazeer, but the assassin didn't even budge.

 _"_ دعها تذهب. أنا بحاجة للتحدث معها ." _[“Let her go. I need to speak with her.”]_ Al Sah-him ordered and Nazeer simply dropped Felicity's hand and took a step back.

“What the hell is going on? Why did Nazeer make me wear this pillowcase?” She gestured at her dress, which clearly wasn't something she would usually wear. “This is not what I had in mind when I asked for new clothes!” She marched forward towards him and he couldn't help but feel a little wound up by her words and how long her legs looked in that “pillowcase” as she called it.

“There's something we need to take care of.” His eyes drifted up from her legs to her baby bump.

“Take care of what?” She instinctively wrapped her arms around her stomach as if it to shield her child from his gaze. “If you even try to hurt my baby, I will-” The look of horror and anger on her face and the thought that she believed that he could be as cruel as to hurt her or the child, stung him deeply.

He was a monster, no doubt. She had every right to think of him as one, but he felt as if she had just stabbed him in his chest with an arrow.

He found himself taking a step back, trying to understand, why what she thought of him mattered so much to him.

Was it because of the history she said they had shared as friends and business partners? Or maybe it was because, he secretly believed those bits and pieces he remembered of their night together meant more than she had implied it did.

“Al Sah-him do not wish to harm the heir.” The Priestess spoke in a thick Arabian accent.

“The heir?” Felicity's brows knitted together as she processed the information. “No! No! No!” She shook her head almost manically as the weight of the priestess' words finally hit her. “No! You're not going to take my baby! Do you understand? I'm not going to let you sign my baby up for a lifetime membership for the league of everything evil! No! Just No!” She grounded out, backing away from him, stopping only when her back collided with Nazeer, who had been standing few feet behind her.

 “What you want doesn't matter, what matters is the league laws and traditions are carried out as they should be!” He walked towards her, with his arms behind his back.

 “To hell with the league's traditions! This is not what I came here for!” She stomped forward, fuming - her hands fisted as if to punch him.

 “We are just going to perform a cleansing, so that -” He tried to explain, but Felicity cut him off.

 “Cleansing? No! I don't even care what that means, but I'm not going to let you... Any of you, touch my child!” She glared at the priestess and Nazeer as if to issue the two of them a warning.

 “The cleansing is for you. It's done to induct you into the league, so, Al Sah-him can marry you.” The Priestess clarified as she moved to the corner of the room to take one of the branding irons, which had been sitting on fire for the last couple of hours.

 “What's she talking about?” Felicity took one more step forward, straight into Al Sah-him's personal space. “I'm not going to marry you! And, my child is most definitely not going to grow up in here and become the heir to your stupid league!” She warned, poking his chest hard with her index finger.

 He could sense Nazeer and the Priestess staring at their interaction and Felicity's blatant disregard for his status in the league, with much scrutiny.

 He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't have the league members doubting his ability to lead, because of a blonde he had supposedly slept with one time, almost half an year ago.

 “Don't test my patience, Felicity! You don't know the kind of man you're dealing with!” He growled as he grabbed her probing finger and pulled her closer.

 “I know the kind of man you're not!”

 “Felicity!” His jaws clicked. Her words felt like a puzzle wrapped within a puzzle and he stared into her teary eyes, as though hoping to find a clue that could help him solve it.

 “Let go of my hand!” The harder she pulled her hand to get her finger free, tighter he held on to it.

 Her breaths fell as heavily and as intensely as his as they stood there glaring at the other.

 “I have to do this!” He knew how wrong it was to force her into doing all of this – the cleansing, the marriage, forcefully taking her child into the league. But, he had to follow league rules no matter what and this was the best option of the two that was available to them. It was either marry her or kill the child. Thus, he had chosen the former.

 “No, I can't... I can't let you do this...” She mumbled, almost incoherently, her eyes boring into his.

 Somehow, slowly and smoothly, everything around him began to fade - except for her. She was the only thing that felt real to him right then. For months, she had been just a vision and now she was there, real and breathing. He just wanted to run his hands along the curves of her body, touch her lips with his own and feel the warmth of her body against his skin, just to ascertain if she was as tiny and delicate as she had been in his visions – just to ascertain if her lips were as sweet and soft as he had imagined them to be - just to ascertain if her body fit as perfectly as it did in his dreams.

 Now, he found himself holding on to her finger for completely different reasons than before.

  _[“Tie her up!”]_  اربطها The priestess' voice broke them both out from their trance and he gently let her finger fall from his clasp.

But, before he knew what was happening, Nazeer was dragging her away from her elbow. “No! Let me go!” Amidst Felicity's protests and her tries wriggle away, Nazeer tied her hands to the wooden bars set up at the middle of the room.

 Al Sah-him's heart was pounding hard and fast at the sight of Felicity. She looked so worried and desperate. He didn't like seeing her like so. He liked her bright blue eyed, witty and blushing. He wanted to stop everything, but he felt as if it was out of his control. These were league rules and traditions, written centuries ago. He maybe the future leader of the league, but he couldn't just ignore them, could he?

 “As Warith al Ghul, he cannot marry a woman outside of the league. So the cleansing has to be done, for you to be accepted as one of us. And only then could Al Sah-him claim you as his .“ The branding iron in the priestess' hand glowed red and hot as she walked around Felicity. “You'll be given the same mark as Al Sah-him as he is your link to the league.” Al Sah-him barely remembered what happened on the day he was cleansed and accepted into the league. Nonetheless, he had used fire as a means of torture on many occasions and he had seen men die unable to bear the pain. So, he knew it was going to hurt Felicity badly. He knew she would scream in pain, when the arrow head shaped end of the branding iron would press against her skin.

 His stomach flipped at the mere thought of seeing her in pain and he tried to ignore it.

 “No! You can't do this to me! No!” Felicity trailed the other woman with her eyes, tugging on the ropes that held her captive. “I don't want to be one of you and I don't want my son to grow up to be one either!”

 “I don't think you will like the alternative Farrah! The league rules do not allow an heir to be born out of wedlock. If you want to see your child unharmed and alive, you would agree to this!”

 

* * *

 

_The priestess' explanation, reminded Al Sah-him of the day he first learned of these strange traditions and laws from the late Ra's himself. Ra's had admitted to not abiding to the rules once - falling for a concubine, who would later become the mother of his two daughters._

 “ _Love is for the weak, Al Sah-him and I was once. But, not anymore.” The former Demon's head had confessed, after revealing to Al Sah-him how the woman he had trusted so much had betrayed him – how she had turned out to be a spy working for Damien Darhk._

 “ _I was so blinded by my feelings, I didn't even see the signs. I had to learn the hard way why these laws were enforced hundreds of years ago. I do not want to see my predecessor fall into the same traps as I did. That is why I helped you get rid of those pesky little things called feelings, before you would take your rightful place as the next Ra's.” The Demon Head had then gone on to explain, why it was important for Warith al Ghul to marry someone from the league – someone who lived by the same rules and had the same beliefs as him._

 “ _You should marry only out of duty – to produce an heir. There's no such thing as love Al Sah-him. There's only deception. There's only the illusion of love. It's a myth. Not real. Not permanent.”_

  _Al Sah-him had nodded in response before, swearing to always adhere to the rules of Nanda Parbat. At the time, he had been sure the physical and mental torture that Ra's had put him through, had made him too numb to feel any form of emotion let alone love._

_But, now... he wasn't so sure._

* * *

 

 

“What do you mean league rules doesn't allow an heir to be born out of wedlock? What age are you living in really?” Felicity's voice tore Al Sah-him out from his thoughts.

 “It means you either agree to do this or your child won't get a chance to open its eyes to see the sun.”

 Al Sah-him cringed at the priestess' choice of words and how easily she had talked about killing an unborn child.

 These kind of words, deeds hadn't made him cringe before though.

 Something was happening to him. Something was slowly changing inside of him. He couldn't understand what, but he knew something was definitely changing.

 “What are you-” Felicity's expression change from confusion to disgust as the priestess' words sunk in. “What kind of an ultimatum is that? Either I let you kill my child or I let you take his soul? Why are you doing this? This is just-” She turned to him, anger burning in her eyes. “I thought that just maybe... there's a bit of humanity left in you, But, it seems I'm wrong!”

 He tried not to let those words affect him, but they were so sharp and direct, they cut through his walls. He closed his eyes for a moment in attempt to forget the pain and confusion her words aroused with in him.

 “No!”

 His eyes snapped opened at her screams.

 Behind her, he could see the priestess getting ready for the cleansing. “A true cleansing can only be achieved by fire.” She untied the knot on the back of Felicity's tunic, so that the arrow mark could be burned into her bare back.

 The fear he saw in Felicity's eyes seemed familiar, just as the pain he felt thrusting his heart at the sight of her shaking form. 

* * *

 

 “ _Oliver, Don't!” He suddenly saw her in a pink dress. Few locks of hair have escaped her ponytail and she was wearing her glasses. They were not in Nanda Parbat anymore, but in some sort of an office building._

 “ _No! Not for me!” Felicity very visibly cringed as a man dressed in black, standing behind her pressed a syringe into her neck._

 “ _Quiet please, I'm threatening.” His voice was vile and eyes seemed demented._

  _“_ I can't lose her.” _That was the only thought that had run through his – no, Oliver's mind as he kept his bow and arrow pointed at the man who was threatening Felicity._

 “ _Lower your bow.” The man demanded._

 “ _Your problem is with me. It's not with her!" Oliver threw the arrow aside, not wanting to see Felicity hurt in anyway._

 " _Well, consider this your penalty for making me go to plan B in the first place...” The crazed man was about to inject Felicity with whatever that was in his hand and Oliver shot, not one, not two, but three arrows straight into his chest, causing the man to fall through the window behind him._

  _He felt relieved._

  _He had saved her._

  _She was still shaking, but alive and breathing._

  _The walls suddenly shifted around and the surroundings changed to some place darker, colder._

_Strangely, not only did the place feel familiar, it felt as if he was – home?_

  _"I'm sorry.” Felicity was now standing in front of him wrapped in a blanket._

  _He couldn't deem her ever doing something that would require her to ever apologize to him. “For what?”_

 “ _I got myself into trouble again. And you killed him. You killed again. And I was the one who put you in the position, where you had to make that kind of choice.”_

  _He had reached for hand to offer her comfort – to let her know she shouldn't blame herself. “Felicity, he had you and he was going to hurt you. There was no choice to make.” Oliver squeezed her hand a little and the little smile that she gave him return, made him realize he would do it all again in a heartbeat. _He would do anything for her.__

_He shut his eyes and let the realization set in._

_Whether he was her Oliver or Al Sah-him, when it came to her, there would always be just one choice._

* * *

 

_احتضني الألم فهو سيحرر روحك أخيرا مما يثقلها [“ Embrace the pain for it would be your soul finally being unburdened.”]_

When he opened his eyes, the priestess was getting ready to mark Felicity as one of their own.

 "توقفي _"_ [“ _Stop!” ]_ The priestess froze. Her hand was in mid air - the branding iron mere inches away from touching Felicity's back.

 

" لا نستطيع أن نفعل ذلك"  _[“We can't do this!”_ ] He couldn't let anyone hurt her. He couldn't bare the thought of seeing Felicity in pain anymore. "هذا لا يجوز " _[“This is not right!” ]_ As he stepped forward and untied the bonds that tied Felicity's hands to the bars, he could see her tear filled eyes on him – trying to read him, trying to understand the reason behind his sudden change of heart.

“Ah..” She hissed, when his fingers grazed over a her wrist, which was slightly bruised from her tries to break free from the ropes.

“You're hurt..” He hurried with the ropes and as soon as the last knot came undone, she fell on him – out of exhaustion and probably relief. He stood there for a second, unsure if he should put his arms around her and comfort her or not. But when he heard her sobbing into his chest and when he felt her tears slowly seeping through his shirt, he had almost instinctively wrapped his arms around her small frame.

 "إذا لن تسمح لي بأن اكمل تقليد التطهير بالكي فان هذا الزفاف لا يمكن أن يتم . كما تعلم، في هذه الحالة يجب" _[“If you do not let me complete the cleansing the wedding can't happen. As you know, in that case we would have to-”_ ] 

 "أليس هذا بيت القصيد من الزواج بها  وهو التأكد من سلامة الطفل ؟ لذلك  لا أستطيع أن أرى المغزى من القيام بتقليد التطهير بالكي الآن ، إذا كان سيؤثر على الأم وربما يؤذي الطفل ؟"  _["Isn't the whole point of marrying her is to make sure the child is not hurt? So, I fail to see how this cleansing has to be done now, if it's going to stress out the mother and probably hurt the child in the process?”]_ He tried to reason with the Priestess. He may have been Warith al Ghul, but she had a lot of say in matters that concerned traditions and laws of the league.

" ولكن ، لا يمكن لرأس الغول ولا لوريث الغول الزواج من شخصية مادامت ليست جزءا من الحشاشين"  _[“But, neither Ra's nor Warith al Ghul can marry someone who's not a part of the league!”]_

"و حفل الزفاف سيتم ليلة الغد كما هو مخطط له "  _[“The wedding will happen tomorrow night as planned!” ]_ He could very well stop the wedding and claim that he should be allowed to have a child out of wedlock, just as the Ra's before him did. However, he didn't want to stop the wedding. It wasn't just because it was a law written in some centuries old book any more.

Seeing Felicity in the state that she was in, he felt responsible.  He felt responsible for her being in this situation in the first place .

If it weren't for him, Darhk wouldn't be after her.

So, he wanted to make it up to her - make sure he did everything he possibly could to make sure Felicity and his child was safe. And, marrying her, he believed would certainly help that cause. Once she was made his, not only would it ensure their child's safety, as his wife she would receive full protection of the league. His men would undoubtedly be more willing to risk their lives to save his wife and their child than just another pregnant woman seeking refuge in Nanda Parbat. And, of course, he too would be able to keep a closer eye on them both this way.

 “But, Al sah-him-” Nazeer, who had been standing quietly all this while, came closer to him. 

 Al Sah-him held onto Felicity little bit more tightly – cocooning her small trembling body in his embrace. “I'm Warith al Ghul heir to the Demon! I thought I'm the one who is in command here?” He barked at the assassin and the Priestess.

 "افعلو كما اقول"  _[“Do as I say!”]_  He yelled and the both of them finally bowed before him. 

 "نعم ، أيها السهم سوف يكون كل شيء حاضرا لحفل الزفاف ليلة الغد "  _[“Yes, Al Sah-him. I will have everything ready for the wedding by tomorrow night.“]_ The priestess assured him, but she did not look thrilled to oblige to his orders.

 Nonetheless, Al Sah-him gave her a slight nod, before turning his attention to the blonde in his arms. “Felicity?” She seemed to have lost consciousness. Her face was pale and her eyes were closed. She barely moved.

 "Oliver...” Relief flooded over him hearing her voice. He may not have approved her calling him that name, but at that moment he didn't give a damn.

 "البحث عن طبيب ! اعثر عن اي شخص ،يستطيع أن يتحقق إذا كانت هي والطفل على ما يرام " _[“Find a doctor! Find someone, who can check if she and the baby is alright!”  ]_ He told Nazeer as he without a second thought, put his arms under Felicity's legs and took her into his arms.

 “You'll be alright.” But, truth be told, he was very worried over her health. He felt helpless as he carried her frail body up to her room. This was one of many reasons why he had been reluctant to let her stay in Nanda Parbat. There were no doctors there. Usually, those who were injured tended to their wounds by themselves, those who were considered expendable or who were not fit enough to live, were left to die and those whose lives were considered important were given the privilege of using the Lazarus pit. 

 He kicked open the door to her room and carefully laid her on top of the bed. “Thank you...” She murmured as she turned to her side and closed her eyes.

  _"_ أنا لا استحق الشكر " _[“I don't deserve it.”]_ And, she didn't deserve to go through any of this either.

 He pulled the bed covers over her and checked on her one more time before turning around to go.

 “I love you, Oliver.” His heart skipped a beat at her confession. He knew she was talking in her sleep and the words were not meant for him, at least not for the man he was now. Yet, those words made him believe that there was more to their story than what she had told him – those words made him believe that Felicity's and his child's safety may not be the only reason why he had wanted to marry her. There was a very selfish reason behind his decision, which he seemed to have overlooked.

 He just didn't want her to go.

He knew once they solve this problem with Darhk, she would leave and he just didn't want her to. He couldn't. He wouldn't.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogues in italics and square brackets are spoken in Arabic. The translation is done by awesome almondblossome on tumblr  
> And thank you to victoriaOlicity for the awesome Poster.  
> A huge thank you The-Nerd-Princess on tumblr for checking this chapter.
> 
> NOTE: I know I told you guys this chapter will be lighter, but although it's not as intense as the last chapter, it's still might not be as lighter as I promised.

**Chapter 6**

Felicity ran a finger over the fading red bruise around her left wrist. The memory of being tied and almost being branded by a burning hot iron still had her shivering.

When Al Sah-him had learned the truth about her pregnancy – the night before last – she had known that her world would turn upside down. But nothing could have prepared her for what had taken place last night.

She still couldn't believe Al Sah-him had agreed to go through with any of it. The cleansing, the wedding – all in attempt to declare her child as the future heir to the demon.

It was true that the alternative available had seemed even worse. It was also true that he had stopped the cleansing ritual before the priestess had a chance to mark her. Still, he had let things go very far, further than she had expected he ever would.

She was livid with him.

She was disappointed by him.

She was frustrated with herself for expecting too much from a man who had given his soul to a demon.

She needed to stop expecting him to do the right thing. She needed to stop expecting him to be her Oliver, who would have given up his own life before he let anyone hurt someone he cared for.

She needed to keep reminding herself that even though Al Sah-him could remember tidbits about their night together, it didn't mean he had a clue about who she was or who they had been to each other.

But it was hard to not to think of him as Oliver, especially when he would say her name or would look at her the way Oliver used to.

And, last night, when he had shouted at the priestess to stop the cleansing ritual – in what Felicity called his Arrow voice – she had thought that somehow her Oliver had finally returned. Certainly, the look he had in his eyes as he had untied her, and the way he had held her when she had collapsed straight into his arms had her convinced that by some miracle Oliver Queen had come back to her.

But now, waking up and seeing the bruises on her wrists, she somehow knew it wasn't over yet. She knew her Oliver was still gone.

She wished Diggle was there. He would have given her some courage. He would  have advised her, told her to remember why she was there.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she looked about the cold, empty room.

Neither could she recollect much of what had happened after Al Sah-him had stopped the ritual, nor was she  sure how or who had brought her there. Nonetheless, she did remember waking up in the middle of the night and seeing Al Sah-him standing few feet back, looking quite lost. _“The doctor said the baby is fine Felicity... you both are fine.”_ She thought she heard him say, before falling back asleep.

“Farrah...” Nazeer's hesitant knock on the door drew her out from her thoughts. After last night's events, she didn't want to let the assassin in, but she knew he would come in either way.

“Yes?” She fixed her glasses and sat up straight, resting her back against the headboard.

“Farrah...” Nazeer opened the door, once more calling her by her league given name. It was Al Sah-him's way of making sure her real identity was kept a secret. Yet, as beautiful as the name sounded, it was a little hard for her to get used to it . But she at times wondered what the name could mean, and who had come up with it. Had  Al Sah-him chosen it for  her or was it just a name randomly picked out from a hat by someone?

“Al Sah-him asked me to give this to you. It's your wedding dress.”

“It's red?” That was the first  – and maybe the only  – thought that crossed her mind as she stared wide-eyed at the dress , her wedding dress, hanging over Nazeer's arm.

She, in no way, was going to accept this dress or agree to this ridiculous wedding. And she most definitely was not going to just idly wait for Al Sah-him to do as he wished with her.

But... but it was red. The wedding dress was red!

"Yes, it is red.” For an assassin who was almost as big and brute as Diggle, Nazeer was very careful as he laid the dress on top of the mattress right next to her feet. “Warith al Ghul got it especially for you.”

What could “ _got it especially for you_ ”, even mean? Was there a secret room in the fortress with a collection of wedding dresses for urgent forced marriages, for him to select from?Or did Al Sah-him fly out to a special boutique in another country to buy this dress? Because, as far as she knew, there weren't any villages or towns near Nanda Parbat where he could have possibly gotten a dress with such delicate gold embroidery that was obviously handmade, and very expensive-looking red silk!

She kept coming back to that point.

Red!

She kept thinking back to the night, where _red_ came to be more than just another color for her.

 

* * *

 

 “ _You look beautiful tonight.” They had just taken a break from one of their tutoring sessions to have a snack when Oliver had suddenly complimented her._

“ _Huh?” She had quickly looked down at herself._

_Her dress hadn't been anything special; a red knee-length dress which she had worn many times before._

 “ _Thanks?” She had downed her wine in  one long gulp, staring at him over the rim of her glass. The intensity in which he was staring back at her made her heart skip a beat. The way he had bit on his lower lip as his fingers twitched, as though they were itching to touch her, had made her stomach flutter._

  _It had taken her a while to realize that this wasn't the first time she had seen that look in his eyes. It was a look she had seen him wearing often, mostly whenever she had worn something a little too revealing or something red._

  _Although she hadn't dared to ask him about it then, she knew he had to have noticed the increase in red dresses in her wardrobe after that night._

  _Red, from that night on, became their color._

 

* * *

 

 

“The ceremony starts at sunset. You are expected to be ready by then.” It was only when she heard Nazeer's harsh voice that she realized she had gotten caught up in her memories.

 “Please, take this away and tell Al Sah-him that this wedding is not going to happen!” She got up from the bed and threw the dress back to Nazeer. Red or not, she couldn’t accept it.

 “Then you'll be forced to get rid of your child.” He kept the dress back on the bed.

“If Al Sah-him had wanted to do that, he would have done it already. He didn't have to force this wedding on me if he doesn’t care about his own flesh and blood!” She had no clue what the driving force behind Al Sah-him's decision was, but she knew he didn't want to see her child hurt.

 “He has already broken one league law for you last night. I don't think he would break another. If he does, the other power-hungry, high-ranked members of the league will begin to question his leadership.”

“I thought Ra's words were the last words.” On her last visit to Nanda Parbat, she had thought Ra's had the last say in everything that happened there.

“He's not Ra's yet. He'll only be Ra's after the next moon. As Warith al Ghul, he's still in command, but if the others decide to go against him, it could be one man against dozens. There are already talks of overthrowing him.” He circled her, as if to intimidate her with his sheer size, but she stood as tall as she possibly could without showing him an ounce of fear.

“He won't survive. They will probably kill him. And if that happens, they won't care about the promise Warith al Ghul made to keep you safe. They will definitely kill you and your child.”

“Why do you care so much about what happens to me?” She stepped away from him.

“I don't. I care about the League. Some league members may not agree with the way Al Sah-him leads or how he handles league rules, but I know there's no one as strong and as intelligent to lead the League and defeat Darhk as Al Sah-him is.” Nazeer said with certainty as he stepped even closer to her. “And I can see that you also don't want to see him get hurt trying to protect you.”

“I...” She wanted to say she didn't care about what happened to him, but the words wouldn't quite come out.

“The ceremony begins at sunset.” Nazeer said nothing more before turning around and walking out of her room.

Felicity's eyes drifted from the closed door to the wedding dress that lay spread across her bed. She sat on the edge of the mattress and ran a hand over its stunning details.

Soon, tears ran down her cheeks and fell up on the dress, somewhat soaking the silky material.

 She felt trapped, helpless, felt as if she had no other option but to wear this damn red dress and marry a man that didn't love her.

 “But it will be worth it, because I'll have you.” She mumbled to herself, smoothing her little baby bump.

 

* * *

 

 

Al Sah-him adjusted the collar of his shirt as he waited at the temple for Felicity - his bride.

His palms were sweaty, his legs felt wobbly, and for the life of him, he couldn't understand why he was so nervous about this.

He had led the League into battles and faced fiercest of enemies without any hesitation, but the mere thought of forcefully marrying the blonde carrying his child had his whole body twitching with a nervous energy he couldn't remember ever feeling before.

_"لقد اقترب موعد الغروب" [“It's almost sunset.”]_ The head priestess pointed out to him as she lit the last candle on the altar behind her.

He was about to reply to her when he saw Nazeer appear at the entrance. _" أين هي؟"[“Where is she?”]_ he asked, and the older assassin quickly stepped aside, revealing the petite blonde in red who had been standing behind him, her dress hugging her body in all the right places and successfully hiding her baby bump.

He hadn’t known how desperate he’d been to see her face until he realized her face was hidden under a veil.

He so badly wanted to get rid of the piece of lace covering her face and find out what was going through her mind. Did she hate him? Did she understand why he had to do this?

The assassins standing on either side of her raised their swords, creating an arch for her to walk under.

Her first step was hesitant.

Her dress touched the floor and hid her feet artfully, creating the impression that she was not walking, but floating towards him.

He didn't know why he had chosen that particular dress for her from all the dresses the priestess had asked him to chose from, but in that moment he knew he had made right choice.

Red was definitely her color. There was no doubt about that in his mind right then.

When she finally stopped in front of him with her head bowed, he instantly reached out and took her hands into his. She hissed when his thumb accidentally graced the bruises around her wrists, and his stomach churned remembering what he had almost let happen last night.

If the situation had not somehow triggered a memory - one of Oliver saving Felicity from some kind of psycho - he wasn't sure if he would have been able to stop the branding ceremony last night.

_"هيا دعونا نبدأ" [“Let's begin, shall we?”]_ The priestess began to recite something in Arabic, but he could barely hear anything except for his heart hammering in his chest. He could barely feel anything except for Felicity's trembling hands he was holding onto.

_"يمكنك الآن رفع الطرحه أيها السهم" [“You may now lift her veil, Al Sah-him.” ]_ He very vaguely heard the priestess say, and he stepped closer to Felicity. With his right hand, he gently lifted the thin piece of lace veiling her face.

First he saw her lips – pink and slightly parted. So kissable and alluring, his own lips parted on their own volition.

He lifted the veil further, exposing the dried out tear streams on her flushed cheeks.

He wanted to swipe those tear marks away, but it wasn't something an assassin would do. It wasn't something a future Ra's would do. Thus, he simply proceeded to uncover her face.

Her eyes were squeezed shut. Most probably to avoid looking at his heinous face.

“Feli... Farrah?” He mumbled her league name. Neither did it get her attention nor did the name feel right on his tongue, but with so many league members around he didn’t want to use her real name.

“There's no vow more sacred or a covenant more holy than the one between man and woman.” Her eyes eventually opened when the priestess began to speak in English.

He caught a glimpse of the tears welled up in her eyes just before she turned around to the priestess without even sparing him a glance.

His heart clenched at the sight. Here stood the woman who for the last few months had teased him in his dreams, the woman whose lips he had wanted to taste for months, and had given him something to look forward to every night as he closed his eyes to sleep, and _this_ , this was supposed to be her fate?

He held onto her hands even harder, half in fear that she would run away, and half in foolish hopes of somehow comforting her.

“With this ceremony, your souls are bound together, forever joined. ” As the Priestess continued, Felicity's hands turned colder and her eyes dropped to the floor.

“You will never be free. You will always be held captive by your love for each other.”

The priestess' words echoed within the otherwise silent temple and the word “captive” resonated with him in the worst way. Because that was what he was about to do. He was about to hold her captive against her will because of his own selfish reasons, and because of stupid league laws. He felt sickened by his own selfishness and by his inability to stand up for these archaic rules that didn't make any sense.

How could he go against it though? It would undoubtedly put his position in the league, her life and their child's life in harms way.

Although he wasn't supposed to worry about anything beyond his position as the next Ra's, he couldn't help but feel concerned about his unborn child and the child's mother.

“ _There was no choice to make.”_ His own voice - Oliver's voice - reverberated in his head and his grip on her hands loosened.

 

* * *

 

  _"You did it!” He turned around to Felicity, only to realize that she was no longer standing beside him wearing a wedding dress, but standing on the opposite side of a boardroom wearing a very short skirt and a blouse._

  _It took him a couple of seconds to realize that they were in the same office building where the crazed man with the syringe had tried to harm Felicity._

“ _Not bad for someone who got a D in 10th grade Algebra.” Felicity mocked._

  _He had gotten a D in Algebra? He was surprised and a bit fascinated by this new fact about himself – about Oliver to be more precise._

 “ _If it's online, I can find it.” Felicity quipped with a wink._

  _He had smiled, before looking into her eyes and replying, “It's just like a good friend once told me, I had to find another way.”_

_Then it hit him. The memory may have been scattered and he may not know the context of the conversation, but it somehow made him realize that he had to find another way to keep Felicity and his child safe and close to him._

  _This forced wedding couldn't be the only way._

 

* * *

 

“And, for this shared life, we offer blessings...The union is now sealed.”

Al Sah-him's head snapped around to the priestess.

No! It was already done?

The priestess had declared them husband and wife?

No!

It seemed he had taken far too long to realize that he should stop this wedding.

No!

They were already married?

“From tonight, you'll be staying with Al Sah-him. You'll be expected to fulfill your duties as his wife.”

Felicity hands slipped away from his.“That won't be happening...ever!” She was now staring at him with nothing but anger and disgust in her eyes.

The wedding that was supposed to bring a man and a woman together seemed to have wedged a much higher wall between them than the one that already existed.  

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lines in Italics and inside square brackets are spoken in Arabic.
> 
> Thanks to the sweet Almondblossoms for the translation as always.  
> Huge thanks to VictoriaOlicity for the poster  
> And thanks to my beta The-nerd-Princess for all the hard work .  
> ***********************************************************************************************************************
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ : 
> 
> As I've said before season 3 happened differently on my story. So, the first kiss didn't happen in the hospital. Oliver hasn't said "I love you" yet. Raylicity also didn't happen. (just it almost did)  
> ***********************************************************************************************************************

 

Chapter 7

The medieval iron torches hanging on the fortress lit the hallways in a dim orange light. Time and again, Felicity would hear footsteps of an assassin or two walking on the floor above her, adding to the ghostly ambiance of the place.

She frowned thinking about how much further she had to walk to get to Al Sah-him’s room. Being five months pregnant and wearing somewhat of a heavy wedding dress made the journey seem far longer to Felicity than it probably was. Having the brooding leader of the league of assassins accompany her definitely made the trip feel even more tiresome.

He had dismissed Nazeer from his duties for the night and had taken it upon himself to escort her to his chamber. He was her husband now after all, she thought with an eye roll, trying to overlook the tinge of excitement that came over her at the word ‘husband’.

Even though she would have felt less stressed and nervous with Nazeer walking behind her than walking side by side with Al Sah-him, she hadn’t objected to it. Because, for one, she doubted it would’ve made a difference, and two, she was too tired to protest. All she wanted to do at that moment was to curl up into a ball somewhere and just sleep.

Thankfully, Al Sah-him hadn’t made any effort to talk to her yet. If he had, she probably would have lost the last bit of sanity she was holding on to, and lashed out at him in her _loud voice_. Then again, the deafening silence stretching between them wasn’t doing her sanity any good either. It gave her too much time to think, and as a result, lots of questions kept popping up in her head.

Would he be sleeping in the same bed as her from now on? Why couldn’t he have waited another month until he was Ra’s, and just skip this whole marriage nonsense? Could it somehow mean there was some kind of a hidden agenda?

She kept fiddling with her fingers as her mind worked at a million gigahertz per second.

From the corner of her eye, she caught him throwing another glance her way — just as he had been doing from the moment she had stepped into the temple, wearing her wedding dress. Although truth be told, most of them weren’t simply glances. They lasted too long to be considered just that. She just didn’t know what to name them.

But whatever those looks were called, she had been ignoring all of them the whole time. Partly because she was scared that she would turn around and find something deeper in his eyes, and partly because she knew she wouldn’t have an answer to the questions that intense gaze was asking.

However, now she was utterly fed up with this game they both were playing. So, without really thinking through as to what she should do next, she snapped her eyes around to him.“What?”

They came to a halt in the middle of the narrow hallway as her eyes met his. Time stood still for a moment as she watched the flames, rising from the torches, dance in his eyes. It gave him the appearance of a dragon trying to rein in every emotion burning inside of him.

His mouth opened as though he was about to say something. Yet seconds passed, and he said nothing. He just stared at her.

She felt the heat in the room rise and her palms turn sweaty. Suddenly, she remembered why she had been avoiding those glances in the first place, and closed her eyes, cutting their connection.

The sound of his feet shuffling let her know he had distanced himself from her. She opened her eyes again, but avoided looking his way. Instead, she turned her attention to the path ahead of her, and hurried off without turning back.

“Ugh! You have to be kidding me?” She grumbled, coming across yet another set of stairs — the third one so far — each one with a staggering eighteen steps. Yes, she had been counting them. It had given her something other than  Al Sah-him to focus on, at least while she climbed them.

“Here…” He held his hand out for her to take.

It was enticing. It would definitely help her reach the top with ease.Yet, she was too stubborn and livid with him to accept his hand. Accepting his help, she felt, would make it seem as if she was alright with what he had done, and she didn’t want him to think that for even a second.

“No!” she said resoundingly before she started going up the stairs by herself, grabbing onto the gritty fortress wall for support.

He lingered close behind her, hands hovering around the small of her back as though to catch her if she were to ever slip, or miss a step and fall. It was endearing, but at the same time, extremely and maddeningly annoying. Here she was, fuming at what he had forced her to do, but there he was, being oh so nice to her as though he hadn’t, just minutes ago, coerced her into marrying him in a creepy archaic ceremony.

“Oof!” She heaved out a heavy sigh when she finally reached the last step, and cussed the man who had designed the godawful place.

“Are you ok?” Al Sah-him tried to catch her wrist, but she pushed his hand away.

“Stop acting like you care!” She glared at him until he backed off and gave her space to walk away.  

She could swear she felt smoke coming out from her ears as she stomped past him.

Then, minutes later, lo and behold there it was; another staircase.

And, that was it. She was done. She couldn’t walk anymore. She was mentally, physically and every possible way exhausted. Still, she didn’t want to admit defeat or ask for help so soon after rejecting Al Sah-him’s helping hand.

She leaned back against the wall, and slowly slid down until she was sitting on the bottommost step of the staircase. She didn’t care how unladylike she might have looked, with the skirt of her wedding dress bunched up on her lap, she merely wanted to rest for a little while. “Just let me catch my breath for a second.”

Al Sah-him came to stand in front of her, but she didn’t dare to look up.

He shifted between his feet while grumbling something in Arabic. The way his index finger flicked against his thumb restlessly made Felicity feel even more restless.

“Please, could you stop moving so much, you’re sort of making me nauseous.” She waved a hand, directing him to move out of her sight. But rather than moving out of her way as asked, he stepped closer to her, the toes of his boots almost touching her flats.

She finally glared up at him, only to be met with a penetrating glare and a set jaw.“What are—”

He didn’t even give her a chance to finish her question. He simply put his hands under her and scooped her up into his arms. For one split millisecond, the feeling of being carried by him, his presence, the sense of weightlessness, made her forget why she had been so frustrated with him, and why she had been crying on her wedding day. She felt an uncontrollable urge to cuddle closer to him and sleep, enveloped in his warmth.

He started to walk up the stairs, and that action somehow jerked her awake from her dream world, helping her shake all the useless thoughts out of her head.

“What do you think you’re doing? Put me down right now!” She pulled at his shirt, but his hold on her only tightened in response.

 _لا! لقد سمحت لك بعمل ما يحلو لكي بما فيه الكفاية !_  [ _“No! I’ve let you have your way long enough!”]_ His eyes seemed focused and determined to carry her all the way up to the room, no matter what.

“I can walk! Just put me down.”

His jaws clicked every time she kicked her legs in the air in protest, but he didn’t even sneak a glance at her.

But she had to admit, it still felt nice. More than nice. According to Diggle he had carried her this way on the night of Slade's attack, but she had been unconscious then. But, now she knew how it felt.

She felt protected and cared for in his arms. She couldn’t ignore the way her body reacted to him, or forget the fact that she had, more than a few times, imagined what it would feel like to have Oliver carry her like this — bridal style — holding her so close to his chest, his arms wrapped around her upper body and legs.Though almost every one of those fantasies had ended with him taking her up to his bedroom to make mad, passionate love to her, it had never started with a forced marriage in Nanda Parbat.

Surely, nothing like in her fantasies was going to happen tonight, but something was indeed happening — to her, — to her body. Ugh! All those pregnant hormones flying around!  

Her heart and body seemed willing to dismiss all the details about how their marriage came to be for a moment, but fortunately —or unfortunately—, her brain didn’t let her cave into the lust that easily. It kept reminding her about everything she didn’t want to remember.

Yet by the time they had reached their destination, it seemed her brain had ultimately lost the battle. Rather than trying to squirm away from him, she was resting her head against his chest and listening to the steady thump of his heart. Rather than pushing him away, she had draped her arms over his neck. Rather than shouting at him to let her go, she was studying the contours of his face, the creases on his brow. He still looked like the same gorgeous man he had been, but there was a certain edge to him that hadn’t been there before.

He made a little grunting sound as he maneuvered them both through the threshold of his — their room. Oh God! She was married to him, and he was carrying her inside to _their_ room, bridal style! They really were married! He really was her husband! The thought hit her again. This time harder than before, — making her fist her hands in an attempt to control the emotions taking over her.

She didn’t want this like this!

“Ok...then.” He gently lowered her to the bed.

As her hands began to slip away from around his neck, another wave of want, another surge of lust, hit her.

She didn’t want to let him go. She couldn’t. She was in the very room that they had made love in —the same bed, the same red sheets, the same scented candles, —and nostalgia was driving her to hold onto him as if her dear life depended on him. She tangled her fingers tighter together behind his neck, locking them and stopping him from moving away from her.

“Felicity...” His hand went up to untangle her hands, but he didn’t really go through with the action. He simply stayed there, —frozen, one knee bent on the bed and the other leg off the bed, one hand over her tangled hands, and the other on her hip. He gazed down at her as though he too had been hit with that same powerful current that was coursing through her veins.

He squeezed her hip once, eliciting a soft moan out of her. “Ah…”

His eyes suddenly widened, as though her reaction had set off an alarm only he could hear. _[“No… This isn’t right. I’m not the man you’re longing for right now Felicity.”]_

Sexy as it was to hear those exotic words come out of his lips, it dragged her so viciously out from her fantasy world and thrusted her back into reality. She might not have known what he had just said, but she knew her Oliver didn’t speak Arabic; Al Sah-him did.

So this time, when he tried to move away, when he tried to untangle her fingers from around his neck, she let him. She let her hands fall, and she let him go.

Still, their eyes lingered on one another for a while longer — both breathing heavily, almost in sync —fingers twitching lightly to reach for the other’s hand. She knew if he were to move even a millimeter her way, or if she were to move millimeter his way, her resolve would be lost.

If she hadn’t realized it before, now she knew; being away from him for five months had clearly elevated her desire for him tenfold.

Felicity forced herself to remember all the reasons as to why Al Sah-him and her were such a bad idea. That, thankfully, broke whatever spell she was under, and she finally managed to tear her eyes away from him.

A few quick lub-dubs and a deep sigh later, she heard his footsteps fade away towards the bathroom.

Yet her heart still raced away.

She couldn’t believe she had almost given into her feelings just like that — at the snap of a finger — even after everything that had happened within the last couple of days.

She wanted to run away from all of this, but she knew she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry for everything.” She whispered as she caressed her belly over the silk. She thought about all the chaos she and the little one inside her had had to face within the past few months, starting from leaving Oliver at Nanda Parbat, to _this_ moment in his bed, and being five months pregnant.

Memories flooded her mind as her eyes wandered about the room — the room she had once before walked into, wanting to say her final goodbyes to Oliver. She hadn’t known when the goodbye had turned into a declaration of love that night, but it had. She didn’t know how one kiss — their first kiss — had so quickly turned into a million more, but it had.

He hadn’t said those three precious words back to her though, and she was fine with it. Neither had she entered his bedroom expecting him to say that, nor had she needed to hear it. She had just known how she felt and had wanted to let him know before time ran out. Although she would be a liar if she were to say she wouldn’t be the happiest woman if he had repeated them to her. She wasn’t sure if it would have made it easier or harder to say goodbye to him, but at least she wouldn’t have had to spend her time wondering.

She slowly got out of the bed and walked over to the window. It was a moonless night, unlike the last time she had been in that same room.

She thought back to their past. What if she hadn’t waited so long to tell him how she felt about him?

There had been a few times where she had been so close to telling him how she felt. On some occasions, the timing had been right but the place had been wrong, and on other occasions, it had been vise versa. Ever since he had said “I love you” to her to trick Slade Wilson, there had been times she had thought he felt the same way, or that he was about to say or do something about whatever that had been going on between them. But it never happened. Nothing really changed.

Except perhaps for that one time she thought he had been about to ask her out on a date, only to realize that it was just dinner between two friends at Big Belly Burger.

Her mind wandered back to the Wednesday he asked her out on their first ‘ _non-date’_ date, as she had later come to call it..

 

* * *

 

_She was just coming back to the foundry after a horrible day at Tech Village, when he had appeared out of nowhere and asked about her day._

_She had ranted about how horrible her new job was. To be honest, if she hadn’t needed the money, she wouldn’t have ever gone to work at that horrible place ever._

_After losing her job as Oliver’s EA, she had received a few offers from other organisations asking her to join their IT staff. But almost all of them had required her to move to another city, which was something she didn’t want to do. She didn’t want to leave the team or Oliver at a time he needed her help the most._

_“Suffice to say, I’m highly motivated to help convince the board to sell you back the company.” She had continued on with her little ramble. “Unfortunately, you don’t have the proper qualifications to do that. But what you have is heart. Speak from your heart.” She had advised, patting him on his chest, right above his heart, where she knew his Bratva tattoo was._

_“Felicity, would  you like to go out…to dinner... tonight?”_

_“Uhm.. you mean with you, Dig and Roy like we do most Wednesday nights?” It had been her idea. They needed to do something other than vigilante-ing to keep the morale, to keep the team spirit, and one night out together as a team had felt like the perfect solution. It had taken some effort on her part to convince Oliver to give up one of their tutoring sessions for the good of the team. However,  it had quickly become part of their weekly routine, which all four of them quite enjoyed._

_“Um, not exactly... I mean, Dig is busy with Lyla, and Roy must be busy with... something…Just you and me. The two of us.”_

_“Correct me if I’m wrong Oliver, but it kind of sounds like you’re asking me out on a date… like a_ date _date,” she had said jokingly, snorting a little, thinking how unlikely it was._

_“Uh…no… yeah..  yes... no I mean…It’s not… The implications with you... Dinner…”_

_Her question might not have been serious, but whatever little hopes she had been secretly harbouring quickly dissipated watching the way he struggled to answer her._

_“It’s ok, Oliver… I mean you and me...” She had motioned at the space between the two of them, her cheeks blushing with embarrassment for ever implying that she thought he had asked her out on a date. “We’re just friends. We’ll always be. You don’t have to explain anything. I got it. I’ll meet you at Big Belly Burger tonight.” With a broken heart, she had run inside the foundry._

_“Felicity… it’s not…” He had called after her but she hadn’t turned around._

_She had avoided him as much as she could, busying herself with searches and whatnot, but the date was already set. She still had to go to this dinner with him._

_Around 7.00pm, she had gone home to freshen up, and when she had arrived at Big Belly Burger he had already been there,_ — _sitting in their usual booth, staring at a plate of fries._

_“Hey…”_

_He had been so caught up in his thoughts, he hadn’t noticed her until she was standing right in front of him._

_“Hey…” He had gotten up from his seat and given her a hug to her surprise. It wasn’t something that they did usually. Well, unless she was ecstatic to see him returning to the foundry after defeating a deadly foe._

_“You … you look nice.” His eyes had raked over her before helping her to her seat._

_Her cheeks had flushed at his words._

_She had worn another one of her red dresses. Not intentionally_ — _or maybe it had been. She wasn’t quite sure now._

_“Thanks.” She had known about his fondness over seeing her in red, and she had used it to tease him the past few weeks, but by then, she had also known that was where that fondness started and ended. Their status quo had been complex even from the beginning, but on that trip to Russia he had made it clear to her that they could never be anything beyond what they were. Even though she had allowed herself to forget about it and wear red as if it would make a difference, she had never been able to fool herself into completely believing that Russia never happened._

_What happened in Russia really didn’t stay in Russia._

_“A double cheese Big Belly burger, with extra mayo and a large fry?” Oliver had checked with her before giving their order to the waiter._

_“Yeah the usual.” She had replied with a forced smile._

_It had been nerve-wracking to eat dinner with him alone tonight, although they had been eating dinner together at her place most nights ever since she had started tutoring him. She figured it had something to do with it being the first time they were having dinner together alone, other than in her home or the foundry. But she had tried not to think too much into it._

_“Felicity… Do you remember… I told you that… I couldn’t be with someone that I could really care about because of…what we do?”  He had asked her out of the blue._

_The french fry in her hand had slipped from her hand.  “Uh-huh?” She had cocked her head to the side, and stared at him puzzled._

_“I think I might have been— ”_

_Something blazing in through the window had cut him off. He had jumped over the table to shield her with his body before whatever it had been could hurt her. Smoke and ash had filled the air and next thing she knew she had woken up on the med table at the foundry with a pounding headache, crying out his name. “Oliver!”_

_“Sh…sh.. It’s ok. I’m here.” She remembered him reassuring her._

_But everything took a turn for the worst after that non-date date._

_Too many things happened._

_Sara died._

_Oliver lost QC._

_Ray happened. Not really, but Oliver thought it did._

_And he pushed her away whenever she tried to reach out to him._

_And she never got the chance to find out what he had tried to say to her on their non-date date before it had gotten blown up._

 

* * *

 

 

Al Sah-him got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist.

Standing in front of the mirror, he trailed the small scar on his left arm with his index finger. His memory of saving Felicity from the madman was still a little fuzzy. He didn’t remember all the fine details surrounding the incident, however he somehow knew the scar on his arm had to be from a bullet he had gotten while fighting the psycho.

Suddenly he was attacked with flashes of Felicity kissing that scar over and over again. He didn’t have to think too hard to remember what those visions were. They were obviously from that night — the only night, according to Felicity, they had slept together. And if his visions were right, that had happened in the same bedroom they were in now, on the same bed she was resting in now, in her wedding dress no less.

A few minutes ago, they had become husband and wife. The reality of the situation was only now slowly dawning upon him. It admittedly frightened him.

Because when he had first agreed to this wedding, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. His main objectives had been about keeping his position in the league, keeping his child and its mother safe, and keeping them close. He hadn’t thought what exactly a marriage to her would entail, or how close did close really mean. He knew that she would have to stay in his room with him after their marriage, but he hadn’t thought of the complications that could arise with cohabitating until he had laid her down upon his —  their — bed.

Seeing her there, in that red dress, had aroused him in a way that no other woman had ever managed to do. If he had been a second late to realize the adoration, the want he found in Felicity’s eyes weren’t for him, he probably would have just pulled her close and kissed her with every fibre of his being. If he had been a second late to notice how red and puffy her eyes still were from crying, he would have simply let things happen as Felicity had obviously wanted them to happen in that moment.

He could have. He could have easily taken advantage of her vulnerability.

In any case, he was Warith al Ghul and she was his wife now. She belonged to him. He could have his way with her or any woman if he wanted to; that was what Ra’s would have told him if he had been alive. He would’ve reminded him that he didn’t have to feel bad for seeing those big, beautiful eyes of hers filled with tears, or feel bad for not doing everything he could do to stop this wedding.

But he did. He felt awful.

Despite everything Ra’s had done to strip him of his humanity, the petite blonde still seemed to be able to draw out something within him that made him feel nearly-human.

He knew he needed to fight that power she seemed to hold over him, or else it could be his downfall. Because it wouldn’t be possible to lead a league full of assassins, win wars, kill and torture his enemies, if he had feelings. No one in the league would respect a leader that would hesitate to hurt someone. Someone would surely stand up and challenge his position as Ra’s if he couldn’t lead the league the way it was supposed to be led, the way it probably had been led for centuries.

How had he gotten himself into this mess?

He turned the water on and splashed some on his face.

She was no doubt a beautiful, intelligent, and too headstrong for her own good. Sure, he found all those qualities about her — and maybe more — very alluring. Who wouldn’t? But it was probably the past they shared that had him gravitating so easily towards her. It was clearly part of the reason why he hadn’t fought as hard as he could to find a better way out of this problem, but… “I won’t let things change because of her,” he told himself, almost as though taking an oath, and stepped out of the bathroom.

His resolution was forgotten the second he saw her standing by the window, eyes trained on the grounds below, resting her right hip against the window frame, and her body slightly turned to where he was. It felt almost like another one of his visions. Except it wasn’t. She was really there, hair gushing in the wind, a hand moving over her baby bump, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Something rumbled inside his chest and he closed his eyes for a second to gather himself.

“Uhm.... you’re shirtless? I mean you’re here…and I wanted to use the bathroom.”

When he opened his eyes, the babbling blonde was quickly wiping her tear away.

“All yours.” He wasn’t sure why he decided to walk towards her when he should have clearly walked the otherway. Yet before he had realized it, he was already standing just a couple of feet away from her.

“Hmm... what? Oh! You mean the bathroom… yeah, of course, what else could you have meant?” He wasn’t sure if her face was so red because she had been crying just now, or if she was blushing because she too was affected by their closeness.

She kept babbling away, but he was too captivated by her fast moving lips to actually pay attention to what she was saying. He caught something about needing her glasses and her clothes, but the rest of what she was saying was a blur to him.

“Felicity…” He put his hand on her shoulder on impulse, and the babbling just stopped.

The mere contact increased the speed of his heartbeat.

What he had done to stop her babbling, and how she had so instantly reacted to it, felt so right. It was as though they had done this a million times before. They probably had, he figured, as he stared into her eyes.

She was looking at him the same way she had done when he had put her down on the bed minutes ago. There was no hatred, no anger, just a deep… longing.

“I need to change,” she muttered suddenly, and looked past him at the bathroom.

“Yeah…” He quickly let her shoulder go.

As soon as his hand was off her shoulder, something similar to disappointment replaced her features. “I don’t think my clothes are here, and I need my glasses.” She stepped back, creating more space between the two of them.

Yes, more distance. That was the right thing to do, he told himself mentally, and walked over to his closet. He pulled out one of his dark grey shirts and a pair of pants he usually wore when he trained. “Here. Until we get your things tomorrow morning.” He threw the clothes at her.

She made a small ‘oof’ sound when they hit her face.

“There’s another towel inside,” he told her.

Throwing him a glare, she went inside the bathroom and banged the door shut.

He heard the water run as he removed his towel and put on a pair of pants.

He wandered over to the bed to sleep, but then decided against it. Sleeping beside the woman who he knew would test his control, who had invaded his thoughts for months before he even knew who she was, didn’t seem like the best of ideas. So, he grabbed one of the pillows and laid back on the mini sofa in the corner. It was too small for him. The cushion wasn’t the most comfortable thing to lie down either. But, he had no choice.

Was this going to be his life from now on? Sleeping on an uncomfortable couch while his gorgeous-but-stubborn wife —  the woman he had been dreaming of and had wanted to kiss for so long —  got ready for bed? Was he going to be forever sleeping there while she slept alone in their bed?

He heard the squeaky sound of the faucet being turned off.  He expected to see Felicity walk into the bedroom any moment, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he heard her talking to herself. No, talking to _their_ baby.

“Hey there hun, sorry if you’re stressed out because mommy is stressed out. There are things... happening that I don’t really like…because your dad is grrr— ” She imitated the sound of a lion’s roar and stopped talking.

Dad?! He was about to be a father whether he was ready or not. In another four months, there would be a little baby in their room, crying, giggling, sleeping.

An image of Felicity holding their child in their bed appeared in front of him, and he didn’t hate it. He didn’t hate it at all.

“But things will get better. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise,” she said and his stomach churned thinking back to last night when Felicity had collapsed into his arms _._ Something could have happened to the baby, to her.

Although the priestess had offered her help, at that moment he had felt as if couldn’t trust her. So he had ordered Nazeer to bring a doctor from somewhere. The only person with a medical degree he had managed to find was a sixty five year old man from their dungeons who hadn’t practiced medicine in years.

A shiver ran down his spine when he realized how easily things could have gone wrong.

He decided that no matter what he had to do, he would make sure they both got the proper medical attention. A retired doctor and a priestess weren’t enough.

The bathroom door opened, and Felicity stepped outside, wearing his shirt. She had, for some reason, foregone the pants, and her long beautiful legs were on full display. The baby bump had probably never ever been as apparent as it was now as she walked into the room in his shirt.

He couldn’t stop ogling her, her legs, her damp hair, her blue eyes, her round stomach.

She hesitated when she saw him gaping at her from the sofa. She kept tugging at the shirt. She clearly wasn’t pleased with anything that had happened. But he could see that he wasn’t the only one who felt a tad confused by the changes that had happened within the last 48 hours. “The pants were too uncomfortable,” she explained as she lifted the duvet and slipped inside.

He felt like joining her, just to see how it would feel to hold her in his arms. Would it be better than his dreams? Would she snuggle into him? Would she ever let him touch her that way?

This woman was going to be his undoing, he realized.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry I tool a long time to update.  
> I was going to up date a couple of days ago then I had to rewrite a part.  
> A huge thanks to the-nerd-princess for betaing the chapter  
> Thanks to Victoria Olicity for the poster.
> 
> Words in brackets and italics are spoken in Arabic.  
> ..............................................................................................................................  
> I couldn't beta this yet. But, I will upload it again after my beta has checked it.  
> ..........................................................................................................................

  

Chapter 8

It had been almost three weeks since their wedding and they had fallen into a routine.

Al Sah-him would wake up before Felicity and go train for a few hours. Then she would wake up a couple of hours later and go to the IT division in the basement of the fortress, and help the league keep tabs on Damien Darhk and his men.

She would eat breakfast and lunch alone on most days because Al Sah-him was usually out doing whatever the soon-to-be-leader of the League of Assassins was supposed to be doing. However, almost every night they would eat dinner together sitting at the opposite ends of the long dining table, stealing glances over the tall candles in the middle. She being her foot-in-the-mouth self would make more than a few inappropriate comments while they ate, but Al Sah-him would barely utter a sentence longer than three words.

She hadn’t babbled at dinner deliberately to make him talk. It was mostly due to her inability to keep her thoughts to herself and her inability to handle the tension that always seemed to hover between them. It would have been nice if he had said something other than ‘good night’, ‘everything alright?’ and ‘pass the butter’. She wouldn’t then feel like she was talking to a wall. It was almost as if he was afraid to talk to her.

It was for the better, she supposed. Talking with him could lead to more babbling, and babbling could lead to revealing things she didn’t want him to know.

The baby moved in her stomach all of a sudden, forcing Felicity to open her eyes. She had been awake for a long while now, but she had been too tired to actually get up and get dressed. The back pain she had been having for the last few nights wasn’t really encouraging her to do anything other than lie in her bed. Yet the stubborn baby in her tummy wasn’t having any of it. “Ok.. Ok.. Mommy is going to get up now!’

She took her watch from the nightstand and checked the time. “Wow!” She was surprised that she was actually up 25 minutes earlier than usual today in spite of having a terrible night of sleep thanks to her back pain.

She had really missed her pregnancy pillow at home last night. She had tried to replicate it by using all the small pillows on her bed, but it hadn’t worked.

The few times she had woken up in the middle of night, her eyes had strayed to Al Sah-him. He had been lying on his side, his legs draped awkwardly over the arm of the sofa. Despite the fact that it was his own fault that she had currently invaded his bed and he had to sleep on a sofa too small for him, she felt bad for him. She knew if he had wanted to he could have slept beside her, or even forced himself up on her. He hadn’t done any of it. She was reluctant to hope that it was because he still had a bit of Oliver in him, but the thought would still pop up from time to time in her head.

She knew how safe and comfortable Oliver used to make her feel. She remembered how caring Oliver was. She remembered how it felt to be in his arms.  And in the middle of the night, those memories made her want to sleep curled up next to Al Sah-him, just to see if it still felt the same way — just to see if he could be a good replacement for her pregnancy pillow.

Her eyes once again wandered to the now empty sofa in front of her. His blanket was neatly folded on top of his pillow, just as she had always found it every morning ever since she had moved into his room.

Imagining a shirtless Al Sah-him folding the blanket made her smile. Oliver too had been kind of a neat freak she had noticed. She had always found it kind of ironic that Oliver and Al Sah-him —   both who had men ready to serve them hand and foot — would just wake up and fold their own blankets before starting their day, while she rarely remembered to do so despite being a daughter of an underpaid cocktail waitress.

With her smile still in place, she slowly got down from the bed, fixing the Henley that had ridden up over her belly.

Al Sah-him had brought her a few day clothes, and thank God some underwear — creepily, in the right size as well. However he hadn’t gotten her anything to wear at night. Not that she had a problem with wearing Oliver’s henley or Al Sah-him’s grey shirt to bed. She felt comfortable in them. It gave her a sense of safety she couldn’t quite explain with words.

 _"كن حذرا! تحرك" [“Be careful! Move!”]_ Sounds of people walking outside her bedroom grabbed her attention. She put her glasses on and slowly walked over to the door. She opened it just enough to poke her head out, and saw more than a dozen League men carrying heavy boxes in a line.

“Farrah, do you need anything?” Nazeer who had been standing guard outside came to stand in front of her, blocking her view completely.

Feeling somewhat uncomfortable to be speaking to Nazeer in just her henley, she closed the door a little bit more to cover herself. “What’s going on?”.

“Warith al Ghul wanted to build a proper medical unit… for you and the baby.”

“Oh?” She couldn’t believe that Al Sah-him would do something like this for them. She was sure the Oliver Queen she fell in love with would have, but Al Sah-him — the man who couldn’t really remember her and the man who supposed to be the next demon’s head — didn’t really have to do so much.

She had always thought his reasons for caring about the wellbeing of her child were strictly due to the fact that he or she was to be his heir. But building something of this scale — something that had never existed in the fortress before — something that the previous Ra’s hadn’t thought to make for his own children — suggested that Al Sah-him’s interest in her child was genuine and honest.

She was grateful, confused and intrigued by his actions.

“Is that all Farrah?”

 _"نعم ، شكرا لك يا نذير" [“Yes, thank you Nazeer.”]_ She had picked up a few simple Arabic words and phrases here and there, but not enough to comprehend a full conversation. Nonetheless she used those words whenever she could.

 _"عفواً" [“You’re welcome.”]_ The usually stoic Nazeer genuinely smiled for the first time ever since she had met him —  probably because her accent and pronunciation were horrible. “When you’re ready to leave to the IT unit, let me know.”

“I… I thought of maybe taking a day off today. I’m not feeling well,” she confessed, rubbing her aching back.

“Should I let Warith al Ghul know? He has ordered me to inform him if there’s anything wrong.”

“No! It’s nothing serious.” She didn’t want to alarm Al Sah-him because she had a bit of a back pain. He must have bigger things to worry about than that.

“If you say so.” He bowed his head and resumed his duties. One of the things that had changed since her marriage was the way Nazeer and the other assassins treated her. They no longer looked at her like a prisoner, but more like a princess trapped in a tower. Sure, it could get patronizing at times, but most of the time they treated her with respect. They bowed to her every wish as long as they knew Al Sah-him would allow it.  
  
Felicity closed the door and shook her head. She couldn’t quite process it yet. Nanda Parbat was going to have a medical unit just for her and her baby.  
  
She was about to cross the room and go to the bathroom when she heard the sound of swords clashing together. Out of curiosity, she sneaked a peek outside from the window and saw a blindfolded Al Sah-him training with a couple of assassins in the training grounds not that far away. The two men were attacking him simultaneously, but even with the blindfolds he not only managed to defend himself, but also kicked one of them, and hit the other on the side of his stomach with the hilt of his sword.  
  
He was impressive. He had always been impressive. He always looked good when he trained. Especially when he trained shirtless and when there were little drops of sweat tracking down the hard muscles of his body.  
  
She licked her lips unconsciously as she watched how gracefully his body moved even with a heavy sword in his hand. It was like watching a dance. Yet somehow it felt more powerful, more invigorating, more arousing than a dance.  
  
He knocked the two men down within the next few seconds.  
  
She gulped, looking at the way he stood victoriously in the middle of the ground, sword in hand and chest heaving. He uttered something in Arabic to the two men before pulling the blindfold down. He abruptly turned his head up to where she was as if all this time he had known she had been watching him.  
  
She felt like a deer caught in headlights as he grinned at her cockily.  
  
Even though she knew it was too late now, she quickly took cover behind the wall nearby, resting her back against it.  
  
The thrill and the embarrassment of being caught ogling made her heart beat fast. She put her hand on her chest to steady her breathing. “You need to keep your thoughts out of the gutter if you’re going to stay here until this whole Damien thing is over.”  
  
Married and the mother of his child or not, she was only going to stay in Nanda Parbat until the problem with Damien Darhk was solved. If she stayed longer than necessary, it was bound to get messy and she was bound to be the one to get hurt..  


* * *

  
Al Sah-him smiled, looking up at the window where a few seconds ago Felicity had watched him from. He didn’t know how he knew that she was there, but he had known somehow. He had felt her presence somehow.  
  
Although he knew he was in great shape, he had also been aware of how ugly his body looked with all the angry scars and tattoos. So he always felt a little thrill whenever he would catch Felicity admiring his physique. The way she had stared at him after being caught had been so endearing and comical, he couldn’t help but smile at her.  
  
This was probably the first time since their wedding that they had interacted other than at dinner time. She would usually be asleep when he woke up and during the day they would be busy doing their own things to ever really cross paths. It was only at dinner that they would get a chance to actually meet.  
  
It was all deliberate on his part. Even though he had decided to do whatever he could to protect his child and the mother, he had also decided to keep his distance from her —  at least until he was sure about how he wanted his relationship with her to progress, or if he wanted it to progress at all.  
  
Although he had avoided her, he had made sure she had everything she needed — from medical care, to food she might crave, to clothes. He had in fact taken one of the middle-aged maids working in the kitchen to help him pick out some clothes for Felicity.  
  
There weren’t that many female assassins in the League, and the few that were had been sent away for League-related missions. His only option had then been to take one of the scullery maids, one who he later found out had never set foot outside of Nanda Parbat. He could have asked any of his men to tag along with the old woman, but he hadn’t wanted another man to have any input on what underwear his wife was going to wear. He and Felicity might not have the most conventional marriage, but he was still her husband and he didn’t want to let that happen.  
  
If he hadn’t been so concerned about Felicity’s health and safety, he would have taken her along with him. It had been highly embarrassing when the shop owner had laughed when he had shown his wife’s bra size using his hands and had said, “about this big .”    
  
Maybe after the baby was born he should take her shopping, he contemplated as he put his shirt back on.  
  
The last few nights nights she had been struggling to sleep. She had been in pain and he didn’t want the stress of travelling to make things even worse for her. He didn’t know much about pregnant women, but he knew it was not that unusual. Nonetheless, he had asked Nanda Parbat's newly hired resident doctor about how he could help to relieve her pain. Even though the doctor had given him a list of things that could be done, he found it to be worthless. He had seen her already following each item on the list. The only thing he thought she could change was her visits to the IT division where she sat in front of the computer for hours. However he knew it was something she enjoyed doing, so he didn’t want to stop her.  
  
He didn’t want her to feel like a prisoner, but because of the issues with Darhk, he couldn’t let her be completely free either.  
  
Then again, if there had been no issues with Darhk, she would have never come to him. He would have never known about the baby.  
  
Then there would have been no pregnant wife to worry about. There would have been no baby to worry about. There would have been no future to worry about.  
  
Just thinking about it made his whole life feel empty.  
  
He realized all League-related things were gradually starting to feel worthless, useless compared to what awaited him in his bedroom at night.  
  
He didn't know how, why or since when, but somehow listening to her talk to her baby bump had become the best part of his day. On the other hand, listening to her crying in pain in the middle of the night somehow had become the most worrying part of his day. So most nights, he found himself quietly and anxiously watching her from the sofa he slept on, ready to help if her situation worsened.  
  
Sighing loudly, he put the sword back into its sheath. He wasn’t quite sure when he had changed from just a man wanting to make sure they had the best care needed, to a very-concerned-and-nervous father that worried over their well-being every second of his existence.  
  
It was strange how he had never worried this much over another human being before, and now he was worrying not just about one, but about two.  
  
Did it have something to do with how good she looked in his grey shirt? Or was it because having someone in his bedroom at night made him feel not-so-alone anymore? Was it because she was the same beautiful woman he had been dreaming of all this time and because her smile seemed to brighten up the fortress? Or was it because deep down somewhere, there was a bit of Oliver still left in him?  
  
He probably might not ever know how they had managed to worm their way into his cold heart, but he had now realized he didn’t have the strength to push them away either. Not for lack of trying though.  
  
Every morning he tried not to make a habit out of staring at her sleeping form for a few seconds before he started his day, but he failed every morning. Every evening he tried not to be amused by her babbles at the dinner table, but he failed every evening. Every day he tried not to feel so intoxicated by her beauty, her brains and her heart, but he was starting to realize that he wasn’t as dead inside as he had first thought to be completely unaffected by someone like her.  
  
"وريث الغول ، لقد أرسل جاسوسنا لك هذه الرسالة "[ _"Warith al Ghul, your informant has sent you this."_ ] A messenger bowed before him.  
  
 "شكراَ لك" [ _“Thank you."_ ] He waited until the messenger and the two men whom he had beaten earlier were out of sight before opening the message.  
  
It was as usual written using the League’s own secret code.  
  
_I had intended to send this message long ago. But members of the Hive have been on my tail and I haven’t found a way to send this message to you._  
  
He skimmed through the first few lines quickly and read the next line.  
  
_I found out that Felicity Smoak is being chased by Damien Darhk because of the child she’s bearing._  
  
This wasn’t news to him anymore, but it just reaffirmed that Felicity had told him the truth.  
  
_Although I'm not sure who the father is, I was able to find out that she had worked as an IT specialist at Queen Consolidated. But then later she was promoted to the position as the Executive Assistant to the CEO of the same organization. According to the employees there, she was very close to the CEO, and helped him run the company. Some say she was sleeping with him to get ahead in the company, and some say she was the brains behind the company before it was taken over by Ray Palmer. She was last seen with the CEO's sister and his bodyguard John Diggle at the airport. The CEO’s name was Oliver Queen and he has been missing for almost five months now. And he is you, Al Sah-him. You are Oliver Queen, heir to Queen Consolidated and brother to Thea Queen._  
  
He ripped the note into tiny pieces and let them get blown away by the wind.  
  
Thea was his sister. He and Felicity had worked together just as Felicity had implied once and Diggle had been his bodyguard.  Although he felt that there were still more than a few pieces missing from the puzzle, he had a fair idea about what the picture was supposed to look like now.  
  
He didn't believe even for a second that Felicity would sleep with her boss just to get ahead in the company. She wasn't that kind of a woman, he was certain of it.  
  
However, something about reading those tidbits about his past made his heart pound hard in his chest. He was eager. He was nervous. He was strangely happy.  
  
But as eager as he was to know how CEO Oliver Queen became Al Sah-him, and how he ended up sleeping with the blonde who he had now made his wife, he was still reluctant to know the whole truth.  
  
What if Oliver had loved Felicity? What if he she had loved him back? What if that one night -- just a 'good bye' as Felicity had called it —  had meant more to both of them than she had let on?  
  
He didn’t know what he should do if the answer to any or all of those question was 'yes', but his heart began to beat faster at the idea.  
  
But what if the answer to all those questions was 'no'?  
  
He felt something clench inside his chest right then. Clearly, he still wasn't ready to accept either one of those possibilities.  
  
So for the time being, he decided to let things unravel themselves rather than chase the unknown.  
  
But, should he tell Felicity what he knew?  
  
Would it somehow affect the routine they have managed to build?

 

* * *

 

“This is so hard!” Felicity closed the Arabic dictionary in her hand.

When she had decided to stay in her room and rest, she hadn't thought she would be bored out of her skull. So after spending a few hours trying to sleep, and another few hours talking to her baby, she had gone and asked Nazeer if he could find her something to read.

Nazeer had then given her the English to Arabic dictionary she now had in her hands. Supposedly, it was the only book available in Nanda Parbat that was not completely in Arabic.

She had taken it from his hand happily, thinking it might at least help her learn the language faster. But she had found the words to be very hard to pronounce and remember.

But she was determined not to quit.

She wondered what Thea and Diggle, or even Laurel, would think if they saw her now; lying in Al Sah-him's bed reading an Arabic Dictionary.

Thea would be thrilled, she supposed. On their way to Nanda Parbat, she had been saying nonstop that she was a million percent sure that Felicity would fall in love with Al Sah-him and ultimately marry him during the course of her stay. Because that was apparently what happened in the movies. She had further said that she approved of it if anything of the sort were to actually happen. However, the difference between what Thea had wanted to see happen and what had actually happened was that her marriage to Al Sah-him was a loveless marriage, a marriage of convenience of sorts.

Diggle on the other hand she was sure would go on his big brother mode and would try to give his two cents to Oliver.

Laurel's reaction was the hardest to guess. Even though Felicity considered Laurel a friend now, she didn't really know Laurel as much as she knew Diggle or Thea. She knew Laurel could hold her own in a fight. She knew she was a lawyer and she had a history with Oliver that no woman could probably ever compete with. Other than that, she didn’t know much about Laurel. She didn't know Laurel well enough to guess what she would think of her marriage to her brainwashed ex.

Thinking about the three of them only made her miss them and Starling more. It had been more than a month since she had seen the three of them and she hoped that they were all safe.

* * *

 

Throughout the whole day Al Sah-him kept wondering whether he should let Felicity know that he now had somewhat of an idea about Oliver Queen and her relationship with him.

Even as he had battled a group of Hive members who had been hiding on the other side of the mountains, his thoughts had been on Felicity and whether he should let her know what he knew.

Even now, as he waited for her to enter the dining room, he couldn't come to a final decision as to what to do exactly.

He looked at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was almost 8:30pm. Usually by this time Felicity and he would be having dinner together. "أين هي فرح؟"  _[“Where's Farrah?”]_ he asked one of the men standing guard behind him.

_"أبلغنا نذير أنها لن تحضر لتناول العشاء هذه الليلة لأنها ليست على ما يرام" [Nazeer informed us that the she wouldn't be showing up to dinner tonight because she wasn't feeling well.”]_

_"ماذا؟! لماذا بحق الجحيم لم يخبرني أحد بهذا من قبل "[“What?! Why the hell didn't anyone tell me this before!”]_ He got up from his chair quickly, glaring at the assassin.

The man stepped back as if he was afraid that he would pull his sword out and cut his head off." نأسف، أيها السهم"   _[“I'm sorry Al Sah-him.”]_

Without replying to the frightened assassin he hurried out of the dining room, only to come face to face with John Diggle and Thea Queen.

Now that he knew Thea was his sister, he saw her in a different light. He saw an innocence he hadn't noticed before. There were battle bruises on her face and hands. In fact, they both looked completely exhausted.

 _"لقد طلبوا مقابلتك أيها السهم"“They wanted to meet you Al Sah-him,”]_ one of the assassins who was escorting them informed him.

“What do you want?” He spat. He wanted to be done with this conversation quickly so he could go to Felicity.

“We need to talk to you in private.”

At John Diggle's request, he led them inside the dining room and sent the guards away.

“Our friend Laurel... “ Thea stopped mid-sentence and sighed. “Our friend Laurel Lance, she passed away yesterday. She was killed by Darhk.” She stared at him as if she was expecting him to react to the news in some way.

But he could neither remember nor feel a thing for this Laurel Lance person to react. In any case, he was trained to not show emotions over such news. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because, it was her dying wish that we give you this.” Diggle took something from his pocket and handed it to him.

It was a photograph of a young woman – a brunette with a bright smile. He still couldn't remember who she was. He had no idea why she had wanted him to have this photograph before she died.

He flipped the photograph around, and found something written on it.

_To the love of my life._

_Laurel_

“What the hell does this mean? Who was she?” He stared at the words in shock. In the morning he had been so sure he had most of the puzzle pieces about his past life in the right places. But with this new development, he wasn't so sure anymore. This puzzle piece didn't really seem to fit into the picture he had in his mind.

“You two had kind of a complicated thing... A history. She used to... you two used to... she loved you.” Thea mumbled.

He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe that he had any kind of complicated thing with someone other than Felicity. He figured maybe it was nothing more than a complicated history between them – perhaps before he met Felicity.

It had to be.

“We want to see Felicity before we go. She would want to know about Laurel.” Diggle's demands woke him up from his musings.

“Not tonight. She's not feeling well today. I don't want you to disturb her with this news.” He put the photograph in his pocket, and walked passed them without waiting for them to reply.

He didn't know what her condition was yet. Nonetheless, he didn't want them even accidentally telling her about the news of her friend being dead and somehow hurting her more.

“Since when are you so concerned about her well-being?” Thea's words stopped him in his tracks and he turned around. Until she had asked him this question, he had completely forgotten that neither of Felicity's friends were aware of their current relationship status, or the fact that he knew the child she was carrying was his.

“It's... You can stay here tonight and talk to her tomorrow if you wish. There are a few things Felicity and I need to talk to you two about as well. If you're staying, let one of the guards know and they'll arrange everything.” He walked out of the dining room ignoring Diggle and Thea's demands to take them both to see Felicity. He asked one of the guards to attend to their guests' needs before rushing off to his room to see her.

Behind him he faintly heard Thea telling the guard that they were going to stay the night and he was happy to hear it. He knew that it would please Felicity – even if the news they had brought with them would not be something she would want to hear.

He began to feel more and more nervous as he got closer to their room.

As much as he wanted to see if she was alright, he didn't want to startle her by barging in. So he carefully turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. It had barely opened a crack when he was greeted with the very pleasing sound of Felicity talking to her baby.

“Calm down, why are you being so stubborn today?” He waited behind the door, listening to her one-sided conversation, feeling relieved to learn that she was in her usual high spirits.

“Do you want mommy to sing or tell you a story? Will you calm down then?”

He was once again reminded by how much he loved listening to her talk to their baby. She mostly said silly little things, but he had always found himself captivated by whatever she said.

“A story it is then.” A choice was made and she cleared her throat a couple of times as though to get herself ready.

“Hmm... But what story do you want to hear? Your mom is kind of a nerd. I wasn't really interested in fairy tales when I was little. I read a lot of tech magazines because my dad was kind of a nerd too. But I loved superhero comic books.”

He wasn’t even surprised to learn this interesting info about her.

“I know a really cool superhero story. It’s my favorite. I think you'd love it.” She clapped happily before she began. “Once upon a time in the kingdom of Starling there was young prince named Oliver Queen.”

His interest piqued instantly and he gently nudged the door open a little bit more so he could see her. She was lying in the middle of the bed, her hair messy and curly, her glasses perched on top of her nose and the comforter pulled up to her waist. She was wearing the blue Henley she seemed to love, but however much she tried to fix it the t-shirt kept falling off one of her shoulder as it always seemed to do.

“Yeah, yeah. I know, it's kind of weird that the prince's surname is Queen. Just go with me on this, ok? This is a good story.”

A happy feeling he didn't remember feeling before filled his chest, and he couldn't stop the smile that erupted on his face as he listened to her.

“He was kind of popular for being rich, good-looking... I mean extremely good-looking, like abs-o-licious... Uhm... Don't waste your time trying to understand what that means because even mommy doesn't know,” she mumbled the last part, running her hand over the smooth curve of her belly.

Her babble and words reminded him of how she had stared at him earlier in the day. He wondered if it had been a habit of hers to stare at Oliver working out.

“So where was I?  He was popular for being rich, extremely good-looking and being kind of a spoiled brat. He and his best friend, Prince Tommy Merlyn, got into lot of trouble. They annoyed a lot of people.”

It dawned on him that Tommy was one of the names that Felicity had picked out for their child and he was curious as to why she had chosen to honor his friend’s name. He decided that he would ask her about it one day.

“But all the princesses from all over the world still loved him and wanted to marry him. Princess Laurel was the only one that got his attention…Hmm... Well sort of...” She paused to think and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Hmm... let's just say she got the _most_ attention.”

So Laurel really had meant something to him then? His hand unconsciously went to the pocket where he had put the brunette's picture.

He still wasn’t so sure.

“Then King Robert, Prince Oliver's father, asked him to go to China with him on their newest ship ‘ _The Queen's Gambit’._ Oliver agreed and he ... I don't think the next part is good for your baby ears... so let's just say he asked Princess Laurel's sister, Princess Sara, to travel with him because they were really really really good friends.”

He stood confused. Why would he go with Laurel's sister if Laurel was the one he cared for? Did he really care for her then or was he just being a spoiled brat like Felicity had mentioned before?

“Don't you ever grow up to be like that, ok?” She waved a finger at her belly in warning. That confirmed to him what kind of a man Oliver Queen had been. He seemed to have fooled around with two sisters – probably breaking their hearts and maybe hearts of many other women by the look of things. Oliver Queen, at least on that aspect, was completely different from him, he realized. He didn’t see women as playthings, even if his position as Ra’s allowed him to use women any way he wanted.

“I'm going to skip some details, because I'm just kind of realizing this could be a depressing story for a baby to hear.”

He had always been curious, but afraid to know more about his past. However he hadn't ever thought this would be how he would come to learn of it, or most of it at least. Honestly, he was happy that this was how his story was being revealed to him. But he wasn't still quite sure what the moral of the story would be or if this was a good story for his child to be listening to.

“There was a huge storm.” She whistled, mimicking the sounds of the wind, waving her hands and fingers up and down to simulate rain.

He found her more and more adorable as the story progressed. His brain kept telling him his thoughts were venturing into some dangerous place, but his loudly-beating, stubborn heart didn't want to admit it.

“Princess Sara and King Robert were lost to the sea. But before King Robert died, he asked his son to make sure to catch all the bad guys and make the Kingdom of Starling a better place. He promised his dad he would, but he didn't get to return to Starling for five years.”

Al Sah-him listened intently, his cheek pressed against the barely opened door and his eyes fixed on the blonde beauty on his bed.

“He was stuck on an island for five years. Oh... wait!” She scratched her head as though she had just realized she had messed up the story. “He also spent a year in Hong Kong. And, who knows, maybe he was in Russia too. Because he has a tattoo... So... I guess he was just mostly stuck on the island for five years.” She nodded, agreeing with herself.

“And in those five years, he learned all kinds of cool fighting skills.” She sliced the air with a few funnily executed Karate chops. “But the thing he was best at was shooting arrows.”

It made sense, he thought. In a battle he always preferred using his bow and arrows against his enemies than his sword.

“He was like Robin Hood. I'm sorry. I know you don't know who Robin Hood is yet, but I'll tell you that story some other time.” She patted her belly lovingly.

“So... Then... When he finally came back home, he wanted to fulfill his promise to his father. He found all the bad guys —  maybe not necessarily in the best way possible, but he caught them. People started calling him the ‘Hood’ because his superhero/vigilante costume was a green hood. And spoiler alert! They later started calling him the _‘Arrow’_.”

Oliver Queen was a vigilante? A hero? Had his time away from his luxurious life really help him change from a womanizing spoiled brat to a hero?

He must have, he thought. Why else would a woman like Felicity want to do anything with a womanizer like Oliver Queen?

It would then actually make sense as to why Felicity didn't approve of the man he had become.

He wasn't a hero by any means. If he was anything, he was a villain.

His mind wandered to the Arrow tattoo on his back and the meaning of the Arabic name he had been given. Before tonight he hadn't really thought that there could be a connection between them and his past.

“We'll get to the _‘Arrow’_ part later. So… anyway, Prince Oliver met Duke Diggle and he promised to help him catch all the bad guys. But soon Prince Oliver realized they needed help with all the computer stuff. So he searched all the land for an IT specialist and found one working in one of his own palaces. Her name was Felicity Smoak.” She yawned loudly and wiped her face with her hand.

“Mommy is a little bit tired right now, and you seem to have calm down a bit now too. So, I'll finish this story some other time.”

No! No! No! This was the part of the story which he was so desperate to know. How could she stop now? He wanted to know what happened when they first met. Did she blush? Did she babble? Was he nervous? He wanted to know everything.

Disappointed at not being able to know their whole story, he punched the door with his fist, making it swing open.

“What the hell?” Felicity sat up startled, drawing the comforter up to her chest.

Her eyes were wide with shock and he kicked himself mentally for frightening her. “ _[Sorry]_ I didn't mean to... I just... They told me you were not going to eat dinner with me tonight and I wanted to see if you were alright?” He walked up to the bed slowly.

“Well I was, until you scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.” It surprised him how easily the word sorry seemed to flow out of him when it came to her. If another League member had heard him they would surely call him weak. Thus he took a mental note to be more careful when he used words such as ‘sorry’ or ‘please’ again.

She gazed at him as if she understood that his concerns were genuine. “It's... it's alright.”

He was happy to see her expressions once again turn softer. “Your friends... Diggle and Thea are here to see you,” he said, hoping that it would bring about a smile to her face. And it did.

Right at that moment, he decided not to tell Felicity what he had learned about his past.

Because what if she started to expect more from him? What would he do if she started to expect him to be more like Oliver? What if he tried to be Oliver and he failed? What if he succeeded? Strangely, the thought of succeeding at being Oliver frightened him more than failure.

She threw the comforter off and got out of bed. “Oh my God! Where are they?” She grinned widely, clapping her hands together. “Are they on their way here?” She asked, tying her hair into a messy bun.

“You can see them tomorrow morning. It's late now.” He gestured her to get in bed.

“It's not that late!” The puppy dog face she made almost convinced him to change his mind and allow her to see her friends. But he wanted her to rest. He wanted to protect her from the news of her friend's death as long as possible. He didn’t know how close she was to the woman who died, but he had now known Felicity long enough to realize she would be heartbroken regardless of what kind of relationship she had with her.

“Not now! You can meet them tomorrow morning!” he ground out, probably more harshly than he had meant to.

She stared at him with her brow furrowed.

He was completely aware of how much she hated being ordered around or told what to do, but this had to be done for her own good.. “I know you've not been well the last few days. I thought you might need some rest,” he quickly added.

“For the love of God! I'm just going to talk to them. I'm not going to jump them... By jump I mean jump as in like hop on them because I’m happy to see them. I didn't mean it in any sexual way.” She counted back from three, blushing furiously. He had a sudden urge to move closer and remove that Henley just to see how deep that blush went.

As a means of stopping himself from following his instincts, he held onto one of the bed posters closest to him.

“You know what I mean,” she summed up, still glaring at him for not letting her meet her friends.

“I just... I was–” he stopped himself before he revealed to her just how much he had come to care for their well-being and that it was no longer because the child in her stomach was the next heir to the Demon. He couldn’t ever let it slip. He shouldn’t let anyone know how deeply he cared for them. It could make him appear weak and make Felicity and their unborn child bigger targets than they already were.

“I get it. You don’t want anything to happen to the baby.” She stared at him with her head tilted to the side as though she was trying to understand if there was some other reason why he was so adamant about her meeting her friends tomorrow instead of tonight.

He didn’t agree or disagree with her comment, he just watched her slowly climb up the bed. Her blue Henley rode up high giving him a good view of her legs. He turned his eyes away before all those visions of touching her, kissing her, making love to her flooded his mind again, and the temptation to touch her became too much.

“I’ll meet them tomorrow,” she stated after she had tucked herself back under the sheets.

“Good.” He was going to walk away, but he stopped, noticing a book on her nightstand — a dictionary. “You’re trying to learn Arabic?”

“Trying? Yes. Succeeding? I don’t think so.” She shrugged narrowing her eyes at the dictionary.

He breathed out a small chuckle at her expression.  “I can teach you.”

“You’ll what?”

He was as surprised as she was. He had no clue what had driven him to offer to teach her himself when he could have easily appointed someone else to teach her. “It was just a suggestion. You don’t have to—”

“Ok.” She bit her lower lip as if she was regretting her decision as soon as she had made it.

“What?”

“I said ok. You can teach me.”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t understand why he was smiling or why he sounded so hopeful when he knew these lessons couldn’t lead to anything good.

“Yeah.” She quickly blew out the candle on the nightstand and hid under the covers while he stood there staring at the dictionary, wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into. This went completely against his idea of keeping her at arm’s length.

These lessons had all the potential to very quickly turn their relationship into something far more dangerous than just an overprotective man caring for his child and the mother of his child.

He had to tread carefully, he told himself. He had to make sure these lessons stayed just what they were meant to be; just lessons.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember Oliver hasn't told Felicity he loves her in this story.
> 
> I didn't beta this. But I will very soon.

Chapter 9

Al Sah-him leaned back on the sofa, and stared at the closed bathroom door. He could no longer hear the water running so he expected Felicity come out of there any moment now.

Last night things hadn’t been any different from the nights before. Felicity had struggled to sleep again and he had just watched her from the sofa pretending to be asleep. His hands had twitched to touch her, and sooth her pain away every time he had heard her mumble in pain, and shift in bed. Yet, he had felt helpless as everu time it dawned on him that he had no real right to touch her, and that she probably wouldn't even let him. 

He wished he could be right beside her every night, and take care of her more than he was currently able to do as her _marriage-of-convenience-husband_. It almost felt like a question of when than a question of if he would ever be more than what he was to her now, and that possibility made his head spin. He shouldn't want to care so much. He shouldn't have broken his morning routine and stayed in the bedroom just because he was worried about her — about how the news of her friend's death would affect her. He shouldn't have stayed when he wasn’t even sure how his presence there now would protect her from what was to come later.

But he had.

The puzzling glance she had thrown his way when she had woken up, and discovered him still lingering about the room had been priceless — a cross between surprise, intrigue and nervousness. He was sure only she could make such a face and still look so damn beautiful. So beautiful in fact that he — Heir to the Demon had started to babble. _“I… we.. I thought…this morning.. Stay here.. I mean since you’re not well. Have breakfast here in the bedroom with you… And your friends. They will be here. Not for breakfast. Just to see you and talk of course. I told Nazeer to bring them here to meet you.”_  

She had just narrowed her eyes and silently grabbed something from their closet before running off to the bathroom.

He had expected her to demand that he let her go outside and meet her friends right then, but surprisingly she hadn’t. He supposed she was still too tired to argue. Yet as relieved as he was that he didn’t have to see her angry with him, he wasn’t sure if she being so exhausted was a good thing or not.

Was she all right? Was the baby all right? Should he ask the doctor to check on her?

He somehow knew she would hate it if he would unnecessarily fussed over her so he decided to wait for now.

He heard her fiddling with the lock on the bathroom door. He looked about the room wanting to find something to do, so it wouldn’t look as if all this time he had been just sitting there waiting for her.

It was then he realized how much his room had changed. To anyone else the change might have looked minimal, but to him it seemed as if his whole world had been turned upside down.

There was an Arabic dictionary on top of his pillow. Her glasses and watch was on the nightstand. His grey shirt which she wore on some nights was draped over the headboard of the bed. One of her dresses was somehow caught between the closet doors. The bed which he would have usually made by now was still a mess and had a little dip where she had been sleeping. The room also looked brighter for some reason and it smelled like her — not like her perfume that had tortured him in his dreams, but it smelled like _her…_ like Felicity, like... happiness, like… home.

He felt overwhelmed by the feelings over taking him even though feelings weren’t supposed to affect him.

He quickly shut his and breathed in.

* * *

_A flurry of vivid, but strangely familiar images began to flash in his mind and suddenly, he found himself in an abandoned building somewhere._

_Felicity was there as well, standing in a corner. Her head was turned to the side as though she didn’t want anyone to notice her tears. There were traces of blood on her for forehead and nose._

_She was hurt._

_"Felicity." He instinctively walked towards her forgetting this was probably just another one of his lost memories, and he was just a spectator in the scene._

_“I didn’t know Felicity. Five years ago, I was a completely different person than I am.”_

  _He stopped in his tracks when he saw Oliver Queen. He was donning a green hood. From what he heard from the story Felicity told their baby, he realized that this must be the vigilante’s hood she had mentioned._

_He watched Oliver take a tentative step towards Felicity. “I had no idea that something like this was even possible. When you and Diggle brought me back to Starling City, I promised to myself I wouldn’t let something like the undertaking happen again.”_

_He had no clue what Oliver was talking about, but he could see that he was looking to Felicity to help him — guide him in someway._

_“What’s happening now is not your fault.” She said, her voice stern and sure._

 " _Yes, it is! I have failed this city. Yao Fei, Shado, Tommy, my father, my mother… All that I ever wanted to do was honor those people.”_

  _Al Sah-him couldn’t remember the faces of any of the people Oliver Queen mentioned, yet he just knew they’ve all had mattered a lot to the man he had been before he became Warith al Ghul. He could just feel it in the pit of his stomach._

  _“You honor the dead by fighting.” Felicity slowly walked up to Oliver, brushing her tears away. “And you’re not done fighting! Malcolm Merlyn, the Count, the Clock King, the Triad, everyone who was trying to hurt this city you stopped them. " She stopped right in front of her friend and gazed into his eyes. "And you will stop Slade!” In that moment It felt as if she believed in Oliver Queen more than he did himself. It felt as if she saw him more than just a man in a hood, more than a vigilante._

  _"I don’t know how.” Oliver’s words felt more like a question than a confession. He probably hadn’t even realized it, but it was clear he was depending on her to give him hope, strength, and to tell him he could be the person he needed to be to stop whoever Slade was._

 " _Neither do I. But I do know two things. You’re not alone and I believe in you.”_

_Al Sah-him watched from afar as Felicity Smoak take one more step and wrap her arms around Oliver Queen. He could almost see the vigilante starting to believe in himself, begin to have hope — all because of the tiny blonde that was enveloped in his arms._

_It was probably crazy, but while he knew Oliver was him, he still envied the billionaire vigilante in green for being able to hug her so easily and for having the good fortune to have her believe in him so much._

  _Al Sah-him wondered if there ever would be a day that she would repeat those words to him — a day that she would believe in him too —  believe he could be something more than what he was now._

* * *

 “Oh? You’re still here? I mean you told me you’ll be but— “

His eyes snapped opened and was caught off guard when he found Felicity standing in the middle of the room, wearing one of the dresses he had bought for her. The simple red dress, fitted her nicely and its skirt fell over her round belly beautifully.

He wasn’t supposed to be a man that believed in a God, angels or destiny, but now looking at her he was willing to believe all of it. Because what else could explain her being in his room right now — what else could explain his good fortune to have a woman like her be the mother of his child.

Oliver Queen had been very lucky to have the chance to hug her, kiss her, make love to her even if it had been only that one night.

“Hope that’s breakfast.” Felicity glanced at the door over his shoulder.

Until then he hadn't even noticed that Nazeer had been knocking on the door. 

“Probably,” he said, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was unable to tear his eyes away from her.

 

Only upon hearing Nazeer call him for the third time Al Sah-him forced himself to turn away from Felicity to go and open the door.

 “What?” He pulled the door open and saw Nezeer waiting outside along with Diggle and Thea.

 _"أيها السهم - ... الإفطار سيكون هنا قريبا ، ولكن ، ضيوفك هم هنا الآن لرؤية فرح . لقد أخبرتهم انه باستطاعتهم ، إذا كان هذا مقبول لديك؟؟" [Al Sah-him… Breakfast will be here shortly, but, your guests are here right now to see Farrah. I told them they can, If it is alright with you.”]_ Nazeer informed.

 “Where’s Felicity?” Thea stepped forward.

 “She’s — “ He barely had a chance to open his mouth to reply when Felicity slightly nudged him out of the way to greet her friends.

 "Thea!" She screamed.

Both Diggle and Thea seemed relieved to see Felicity safe and well, but their faces were still sombre compared to the widely grinning Felicity's. No doubt it was because they both knew what they were about to say was going to hurt their dear friend.

 “Felicity, are you alright?” Diggle asked as Felicity dragged both him and Thea inside the bedroom.

 "انتظر خارجاً" _[“Wait outside.”]_  Al Sah-him instructed Nazeer before closing the door.

 “How are you and — ” Thea stopped mid-sentence and eyed Felicity’s baby bump. She seemed a little surprised that she was wearing a dress that made it apparent that she was pregnant. 

 “The baby?” Al Sah-him supplied, stationing himself next to Diggle.

Thea raised his brows. 

 “Yeah he knows obviously... just about the baby I mean.“ She looked up at him very briefly before casting her eyes back on Thea. "And he knows his first name."

“Wait! What? So everything is good?” Thea looked back and forth between them excitedly. The expression in her eyes — in his sister’s eyes intrigued him.

“If by good you mean, If I’m OK with being forced into marrying someone because my baby is apparently the next Demon's Head and if I’m OK with the fact that I almost got branded with a hot iron thingy? Yeah, I’m totally fine.” She shrugged and rolled her eyes.

 “What the — “ Diggle turned to face him growling, his hands balled into fists. He expected the larger man to lift his hand any moment and punch him on the face, but Felicity intervened.

 “Hey… Hey, Dig… Everything’s fine.  I’m fine.” She came to stand between them, and put her hand on Diggle's chest to stop him. 

He wasn’t at all afraid to face Diggle, but he had to admit it felt nice to have someone jump into save him, not just because he’s the Heir to the Demon.

“I probably shouldn’t have blurted everything out like that, but trust me... This was the best thing to do. As hard as it was for me to believe it at first he… he did it for me— for us. There’s was no other choice make.”

Her words hit a chord with Al Sah-him. Not only did they remind him of the memory that resurfaced not that long ago, it showed him that she had grown to trust him in spite of everything.

 “But Felicity — “ Diggle stepped forward and Felicity stepped backwards until she was literally standing leaning her back against her _marriage-of-convenience-husband's_ chest.

He wondered if she could feel the way his heart skipped a beat when she bumped into him just as he was able to hear her breaths fall against his chest.

 “Do you trust me, Dig?"

 He couldn’t see her face, but he could imagine it. Eyes wide and blue, cheeks red, lips a little parted and ready to argue whatever point Diggle was going to bring up.

 “But — “

“I’m fine Dig. He didn’t let anyone hurt me or the baby. He won’t.” Her belief in him may not be as same as or even close to how much he believed in Oliver Queen, but it made his heart heavy with something he was unable to understand. The only thing he knew was that he would always crave for that feeling. 

“Well, this was not exactly what I had in mind when I said you two would end up together sooner or later. But -- ”

“Thea!” Felicity cut her off. Still Thea's remark didn’t escape Al Sah-him’s attention. It seemed as if his sister approved of this union if it had been under different circumstances. It made him want to tell her right then that he knew she was his sister just to see his reaction, but then thought better of it. 

“What?” Thea just shrugged her shoulders and looked about the room with feigned innocence.

“I thought you two have something to tell me.” Felicity quickly changed the topic.

“It’s about Laurel.” Diggle moved away and so did Felicity, leaving him feeling cold and alone all of a sudden even though she was right there, just a few feet away from him.

“What about Laurel?”

“Damien Darhk … He… He-” Thea struggled to tell her. In any case it was probably not even needed. He could see the wheels in Felicity's head already turning and making sense of what was told in words and what was written on her friends' faces. The horrified expression that crossed her face a moment later told him that she had finally figured it out.

“No!” She shook her head in denial and covered her face with her hands.

“Felicity…” He wanted to reach out and grab her hand, pull her into a hug and comfort her, but he was worried she would reject him.

“When?” She took a deep breath and let her hands fall.

“A week ago.” Diggle replied.

A tear rolled down her cheek and she looked up at him. Her expression was hard to read. He felt as if she was asking something from him to which he didn't know the answer.

“Felicity…” He was just about to take her hand when she reached out and caught his first.

“Are you OK?” she asked. and he stared back at her confused.

“What?”

“It’s Laurel.” She stared at him as though that sentence had the meaning of a book. "Laurel" She repeated and stood waiting for recognition to cross his face. 

"I'm sorry, Felicity I - " Although he had already seen Laurel’s picture and had some sort of an idea about what kind of relationship they may have had, he barely felt anything but concern towards Felicity right then. 

“I know you don’t remember, but it's Laurel.”

He wanted her to stop trying to convince him that the woman he only knew by name and hadn’t heard of until last night, meant more to him than he felt.

But was Felicity right? Should he try to remember the connection he had with Laurel?

“Your Laurel.” She squeezed his hand. Her eyes were begging him to remember.

He closed his eyes to try and remember for Felicity’s sake.

* * *

  _However_ _who he saw once again was Felicity. “I don’t want to be safe. I want to be with you … and the others, unsafe.” She was talking to Oliver Queen, who was standing right in front of her looking into her eyes. Al Sah-him couldn’t understand what was going on as always, but his heart fluttered at the concern and care he saw on Felicity’s face._

_“Slade took Laurel because he wants to kill the woman I love.” Oliver explained as Al Sah-him tried to piece things together and find out what exactly was going on._

_They were talking about Slade again — the same man Felicity had mentioned in his last memory and it seemed Slade had kidnapped Laurel to avenge him for some reason._

" _So?” Felicity looked at him with her forehead creased._

_“He took the wrong woman.”_

  _“Oh?” She stared at him as if she was trying to find the meaning of the words unsaid by Oliver Queen._

 " _I love you.”_

  _Listening to Oliver Queen utter those words should’ve surprised Al Sah-him after how much Felicity had tried to convince him that Laurel was “his Laurel”, but it didn’t._ _This felt right. Oliver Queen being in love with Felicity Smoak made sense to him even though he barely knew their history._

" _Do you understand?” He saw Oliver secretly place something in her hand._ _It looked as though there was more to what he was seeing than a simple confession of love._

_Was it some kind of an elaborated plan to catch Slade? Was it all a lie?_

  _Felicity's_   _face changed when she too probably realized that things weren’t what they seemed._

  _She nodded yes nonetheless and then Oliver simply left without turning back. Without even giving a goodbye kiss to the woman he  had just confessed his love to._

_He just left her all alone in that dark abandoned place._

_Oliver's actions didn't set well with Al Sah-him. He felt a powerful urge to protect her, drag Oliver Queen back there so she wouldn’t look so alone and shaken._

_This wasn’t right. Something bad was going to happen to her. He could feel it. She was going to get hurt. He was sure of it. Someone  -- Slade was going to hurt her, try to kill her. He was sure of it._

* * *

“No! I can’t let anything happen to her.” He mumbled to himself as he pictured a faceless man hold a sword to Felicity's neck.

“It’s my fault, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there. You lost your Laurel because of me.” Felicity’s voice, her hand on his cheek dragged him out from his memories and he opened his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m crying so much. She was a friend, but…Ugh! I feel like a horrible person for saying that ‘but’ right now… I just... I don’t know.. I just.. I’m so sorry.” When he saw her staring at him, her eyes filled with tears, he realized those tears were for him. She wasn’t crying for Laurel. She was crying for him -- the loved one he lost.

He wanted to scream and say she was wrong. He wanted to say that he felt nothing towards her friend, but he didn’t want to wake up one day and remember that Felicity had been right about Laurel.

Although he didn't know much about his history with Laurel or Felicity, he knew one thing for sure; Felicity was not at fault for Laurel's death "It’s not your fault Felicity. It’s not your fault.” He pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her without giving it another thought, without thinking what Diggle or Thea might think. “Sh… sh…  It’s not your fault.”  He kissed the top of her head.

“If I’d been there… And hadn’t just been hiding here, worrying about my safety... if I wasn’t so selfish this wouldn't have happened. You wouldn't have lost her.” She cried into his chest, holding onto him tightly.

“Felicity, you’re not selfish. It’s not your fault, Trust me.”

She stopped talking, but he could still hear her quiet snobs. "It's not your fault" Only when he heard the door close that he remembered that Diggle and Thea had been in the room and had now left.


End file.
